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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Shelf QL 544 



UNITED STATES 




Fronlispit 



AMONG THE MOTHS 

AND 

BUTTERFLIES 



(^ 






"INSECT LIVES; OR, BORN IN PRISON" 



JULIA P. 'BALLARD 



^ COPVRlG„;\x 

■ t/^JV 

SHinGTON- 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

LONDON 

27 KING WILLIAM 

®bc Jirtidurbockrr IJwss 
1800 



COPYRIGHT BY 

JULIA P. BALLARD 



Ube Iftnicfeerbocfoer ipces0, 1Rew ltJorfe 

Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by 
G. P. Putnam's Sons 



MY SON 

HARLAN HOGUE BALLARD 



CONTENTS. 



Preface to " Insect Lives" 

Preface to Revised Edition 

Introductory xxiii 

CHAPTER I. 
Born in Prison i 

CHAPTER II. 
The Green House with Gold Nails 4 

CHAPTER III. 
Two Front Doors, and What was behind Them . -17 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Early Butterfly 25 

CHAPTER V. 
Through a Glass Clearly 30 

CHAPTER VI. 
How I Caught a Bear 44 

CHAPTER VII. 
Crumple-Wing , 49 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Under the Cape • ■ 53 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Arctian and Ichneumon c6 



viil CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

The White Ermine Moth 58 

CHAPTER XI. 
A Hundred to One 59 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Unfinished Life of Quaker Gray . ... 68 

CHAPTER XIII. 
An Early Cecropian 70 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Rosy Dryocampa 79 

CHAPTER XV. 
The Saturnia Io • . 86 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Silver Gray . .95 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Ceratomia Quadricornis . . . . .101 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Philampelus Achemon 105 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The Fox-Faced Moth [Adoneta Spinuloides] . . .110 

CHAPTER XX. 
Life in a Basket . . . . . . . . .115 

CHAPTER XXI. 
A Blackberry Looper 119 

CHAPTER XXII. 
The Dryocampa Imperialis 122 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
A Barrel Full ok Lunas 128 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The February Butterfly [Papilio Cresphontes] . . 135 

CHAPTER XXV. 
A Thousand to One 144 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Complaint of the Chrysalis . . . . .149 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
The Tussock Moth 151 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Winged and Wingless 156 

CHAPTER XXIX. 
A Race for Life 163 

CHAPTER XXX. 
The Bulrush Caterpillar 168 

CHAPTER XXXI. 
A Beaded Caterpillar 174 

CHAPTER XXXII. 
Attacus Cynthia 177 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 
The Turnus Butterfly . 181 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

The Beech-Nut Box [Limacodes Scapha] . . , .187 

CHAPTER XXXV. 
The " Monkey- Faced " Moth — Hag Moth [Phobetron 
Pithecium] . .195 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 
The Smartweed Caterpillar ......... 201 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 
The Great Leopard Moth 206 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
A Butterfly Chase . . . . . . . . 212 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 
Two Sides to a Shield, The White-Lined Morning 
Sphinx [Deilephila Lineata] 217 

CHAPTER XL. 
The " Deceptive Moth " 223 

CHAPTER XLI. 
The Royal Walnut Moth ....... 227 




ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Among the Moths and Butterflies . Frontispiece. 

Gall-Nuts (" Oak Apples") xvu 

"Beechnut-Box" xx 

Grooved Egg xxxm 

3. Cabbage Butterfly, Caterpillar, and Chrysalis . 2 

5. Danais Caterpillar and Egg (Magnified) . . 5 

Danais Caterpillar Suspended for Chrysalis . 6 

8, 9. Different Views of Danais Chrysalis . 7 

Danais Archippus Butterfly 10 

Danais Chrysalids, Butterfly, and Caterpillar . 16 
Caterpillar of Papilio Asterias . . . .17 

Papilio Asterias 19 

Chrysalids of Papilio Asterias . . .' .20 

Suspended Asterias Chrysalis 21 

Ichneumon Flies 22 

The Early Butterfly : Vanessa Antiopa . . 25 

Vanessa Antiopa Caterpillar . . . . .26 

Chrysalis of Vanessa Antiopa 29 

Polyphemus Cocoon 30 

, 22. Back and Front View of Polyphemus Chrysalis . 31 

Polyphemus Antenna 31 

Polyphemus Moth 33 

Polyphemus Caterpillar 35 

xi 



XU ILL US TRA TIONS. 

figure page 

26. Yellow-Bear Caterpillar 45 

27, 28. Cocoon and Chrysalis of Yellow-Bear Cater- 

pillar 45 

29. Virginia Ermine Moth 46 

30. Crumple-Wing 49 

31. Salt-Marsh Caterpillar 49 

32. Arctia Acrea 52 

33. Acrea Moth (just out of its Cocoon) . . -54 

34. Arctia Acrea ■ . . . .55 

35. Choerocampa Pampinatrix 60 

36. Chcerocampa Caterpillar with Ichneumon Chrysa- 

lids 61 

37. Ichneumon Fly 62 

38. Ichneumon Chrysalids 62 

39. Chcerocampa Chrysalis 63 

40. 41. Cocoon and Chrysalis of Cecropia Moth . . 70 

42. Attacus Cecropia Moth 73 

43. Dryocampa Rubicunda 79 

44. 45. Caterpillar and Chrysalis of Dryocampa 

Rubicunda 83 

46. Dryocampa Rubicunda Moth 85 

47. Saturnia Io (Female Moth) 86 

48. Saturnia In Caterpillar, with the Three Grades 

of Spines 88 

49. Chrysalis and Cocoon of Saturnia Io . . 90 

50. Female Io 91 

51. Male Io 92 

52. Macrosila Quinquemaculata Moth . . .' -97 

53. Larva of the Quinquemaculata Moth . . .98 

54. Chrysalis of the Quinquemaculata . . . -99 

55. Ceratomia Quadricornis 101 

56. Caterpillar of Ceratomia Quadricornis . . . 102 



ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii 

57. Philampelus Achemon Moth 105 

58. Caterpillar of Philampelus Achemon . . . 106 

59. Caterpillar with head withdrawn .... 107 

60. 61. Upper and Under Side of Philampelus Chrysalis, 108 

62. Cocoon and Front and Side Views of the Adoneta 

Spinuloides no 

63. Different Positions of the Blackberry Looper . 120 

64. The Dryocampa Imperialis 123 

65. Caterpillar of Dryocampa Imperialis . . . 125 

66. Attacus Luna Moth 129 

67. Cocoon of Attacus Luna . . .- . . .134 

68. Papilio Cresphontes 137 

69. Chrysalis of Cresphontes Caterpillar . . . 141 

70. The Cresphontes Caterpillar . . ' . . .142 

71. Larva, Pupa, and Male Moth of the PlusiaBrassic/E, 146 

72. 73. Hickory Tussock Moth and Caterpillar . .151 

74. Cocoon of Hickory Tussock Moth . . . . 154 

75, 76. Orgyia Leucostigma Moth (Male and Female) . 156 

77. Chrysalis and Wingless Moth of Orgyia Leu- 

costigma .• 157 

78. Caterpillar of Orgyia Leucostigma . . . .158 

79. Currant Caterpillar 163 

80. Currant Saw-Fly 165 

81. Currant Leaf Eaten in Circular Holes by the Saw- 

Fly . ■ 166 

32. The Bulrush Caterpillar 169 

S3. Larvae of New Zealand Swift Moth . . .170 

84. Attacus Cynthia : Eggs, Larva, Cocoon, Chrysalis, 

and Female Moth (after Riley) . .178 

85. Caterpillar of Papilio Turnus 181 

86. Papilio Turnus 183 

87. Scapha Moth 193 



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" Oh look thou largely with lenient eyes 

On what so beside thee creeps and clings, 
For the possible glory that underlies 

The passing phase of the meanest things." 

— Mrs. Whitney. 




PREFACE TO "INSECT LIVES." 




GALL-NUTS (" OAK APPLE"). 
HOME OF THE " CYNIPS CONFLUENS." 

HOW shall we interest young people ? 
How shall we most interest them ? 
How shall we best interest them ? 

You give to your boy a glass ball. It is 
clear and beautiful. He can amuse himself 
with it. How ? Not by studying it, but by 
rolling or catching it. Tell him to put the 



XVlii PREFACE TO " INSECT LIVES." 

ball under a glass cover and watch it. Tell 
him to wait and look again and see what he 
will find. "Nothing," he says, "but a ball." 
He is right. Man made it, and all the beauty 
it will ever have it has now. Give him a 
microscope. What does he see ? A little 
coarser texture, perhaps a flaw, a bubble of 
confined air, but only the same glass ball. 
Go with him to the forest. Pick from an oak 
branch a plain brown ball. Is this only a ball ? 
Put it under a glass. Look again and you 
will find it more than a ball. It is a home. 
The doors will soon open and the family dis- 
perse. Watch. There goes one in full dress 
out on an early promenade. With what ease 
and grace it walks up and down its prison of 
glass. Another follows. There is a large 
family for so small a house. Who built it ? 
Was it cast in a mould by a man ? God made 
it, and all the beauty it has is not seen at first. 
Take the microscope. No roughness is re- 
vealed, no flaw, but exquisite beauty and finish 
in every part of the house, in every part of 
each perfect inmate. Suppose a boy could 
buy a glass ball that would develop such won- 
derful secrets. What merchant could supply 
the market ? Aladdin's lamp would be at a 
discount. 



PREFACE TO " INSECT LIVES." xix 

You give your girl a silk "beechnut-box." 
Some of them will know what I mean : a 
three-sided box, made of card-board and cov- 
ered and lined with silk, such as only grand- 
mothers can probably make now. She looks 
at it. It seems solid. Press it and it opens. 
One side has been left without being closed. 
What can she do with it ? It is better than a 
ball. It will hold something. She can use it. 
But the box itself, what will it come to ? Tell 
her to put the box under a glass and see what 
it will get to be. She will laugh and tell you, 
"only a box." All there is to it she sees at 
once. Try the microscope. Only a little 
coarser silk. 

Here is a green " beechnut-box " I have 
found on a walnut leaf. It is very small — no 
larger than a beechnut and looking much like 
a green one. Is it a box ? Let us try the 
microscope. It is embroidered on the sides 
and back. There are small patterns in dia- 
monds in brown and drab. While you look it 
moves. Put it under a glass and watch. Is it 
a home ? Put a bit of walnut leaf by it. What 
is that moving just under one of the pointed 
ends ? It is a head. The leaf begins to dis- 
appear, the owner of the box, the Limacodes 
scaftka, is taking his breakfast. 



XX PREFACE TO "INSECT LIVES." 

Which will you prefer, the glass ball or the 
round, brown house, the silk box or the curious 
living thing that has surprised you and holds 
in reserve a still greater surprise ? 

It is with the hope of getting this question 
answered in favor of living balls and boxes, of 
getting the key into the hand and getting the 
heart ready and anxious to unlock the many 
sources of beauty and interest which God has 
placed all about us in nature, that this little 
volume of "Insect Lives" has been written. 
That we may learn that while " it is the glory 
of God to conceal a thing," He is not only 
willing we should search out these hidden 
wonders, but will Himself be glad in our new- 
found delight in them. 

Easton, Pa., Sept. 26, 1879. 



LIMACODES SCAPHA. 
(" BEECHNUT-BOX.") 



PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 



AMONG the Moths and Butterflies again ! 
How long shall you study them, and 
enjoy them ? " 

"As long as you study flowers and enjoy 
them." 

" But flowers are different. One always 
loves them. They are brighter and prettier 
in every way, and no care. You must be feed- 
ing and watching and waiting, always." 

" And you must be planting and pruning, 
weeding and watching, waiting as long from 
seed to blossom as from egg to imago. Flow- 
ers are indeed bright and gay, but I do not 
admit they are brighter or more attractive 
than butterflies. As to feeding, you must at 
least give them drink ; and some, I learn, do 
not refuse food, nor object indeed to an occa- 
sional repast of beefsteak. Then the life of 
the moths and butterflies ! Your flowers, how- 



xxii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 

ever fair and beautiful, are tied to earth. I 
have heard, it is true, that some of them take 
'a step a year,' and some are winged and 
poised as if ready to fly, but only 'as if.' No, 
they are servants to the butterflies. Holding 
up dainty cups of ambrosia, leaving the lids of 
their honey jars open, filling their chalices 
with perfumed sweets at early evening, they 
are the cupbearers to the floating fairies of the 
garden, the meadow, and the wood." 

So I have been out among them again, and 
bring more stories of their triple life than I 
gave in " Insect Lives ; or, Born in Prison," 
not forgetting those, but adding these to them, 
wishing only there were more. Out among 
them again and yet again, so long as the delicate 
cups of the wild plum or locust entice the Euda- 
mus, or the gay goblets of the tulip-tree shall 
tempt the more brilliant Turnus, or the White- 
lined Morning Sphinx hovers over the evening 
primroses and four-o'clocks, and all the happy 
children cry : " See, the humming-birds are 
come ! the humming-birds are come ! " 

E aston, Pa., Sept. I, 1890. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



I KNOW you. I know what you 
been. I know what you wz//be." This 
it is delightful to be able to say to the cater- 
pillar crossing your path slowly, or to the 
butterfly winging its way in the air before you 
— to look upon the common brown brush-like 
caterpillar, with black at each end of him, and 
say : " Plod on a little longer, good fellow, and 
you shall be a tiger moth ! " or upon the small 
yellow and white butterfly, and say : "You, a 
little while ago, were a green caterpillar, mak- 
ing holes for dear life through a cabbage leaf ! " 
And this may easily be accomplished with the 
aid of your own eyes and a microscope, and 
also (as butterflies and caterpillars do not go 
flying and crawling about labelled) by the help 
of authors who have studied and classified 
them. 

I. " But how shall we catch the butterflies? 
With a net?" 



XXIV IN TROD UCTOR Y. 

Not at all. That may do very well if you 
care for nothing but their present beauty ; but 
if you wish to know the butterfly, you had 
better take an earlier chapter in his life. Of 
course the first thing would be the egg, but, as 
these are not so easily found, you can begin 
with the caterpillar, and in due time you will 
came round to the egg, and so have the whole 
at command. The smaller the caterpillar when 
you get him the better, because he is very fond 
of changing his coat, and, liking a variety, is 
apt to put on quite a different one each time. 
Sometimes the second coat is much gayer than 
the first, even though that were a coat of many 
colors. Caterpillars usually change four times 
before going into a chrysalis state. Some 
butterfly caterpillars change five times (as the 
Papilio philenor), though the other Papilios 
of the Northern United States change but 
four, and some have but three changes ; so 
that one who has never noticed them care- 
fully will be much surprised, in studying them, 
at the immense variety in shape and color, and 
also the great beauty which many of them 
display. 

I have seen more elaborate work in design 
and color, in a surface less than an inch in 
length, and in width no more than a sixth of 



IN TROD UC TOR V. XX v 

an inch, in a small, unnoticed caterpillar, than 
I have ever seen in as much surface on any 
flower. And the microscope reveals here 
often an amazing amount of work and beauty 
little suspected without its aid. 

While some caterpillars are hairy, and look 
like little travelling clothes-brushes, others are 
knobbed, or spiny, like the porcupine, and 
others quite smooth. Some are handsomely 
dressed in scarlet and gold, with tufts of 
various colors grouped upon their bodies ; 
and, strange as it may seem, some of the 
gayest and handsomest make the very dullest 
and homeliest moths. They have always twelve 
rings, called segments, besides a shelly head, 
and from ten to sixteen legs. They have a 
little conical tube or spinneret in the centre of 
the lower lip, from which they spin the silk 
for their cocoons, or draw the silken thread, 
which some use instead, to fasten themselves 
with when changing into chrysalids. The 
change from one coat to another is something 
curious, but not much in comparison to the 
change from the caterpillar to the butterfly 
through the chrysalis state. Here the form 
is entirely altered. The mouth and man- 
ner of eating and kind of food are totally 
different. 



XXVI IN TR OD UC TOR Y. 

II. " But how can I touch the caterpillars 
when I wish to get them?" 

Do not touch them at all. Take a little 
box, and when you see one, with a pencil or 
stick gently push him into it, and carry him 
home. Get some plain glass tumblers, the 
larger the better. You can begin with one or 
two, but you will soon want a dozen. Put 
your caterpillar upon a white paper, which 
you have first placed on an old book, or other 
firm substance, and cover him with the glass. 
If you have several kinds at once, it is well to 
label the glasses. Write " Grape," or " Apple," 
or " Poplar," upon a slip of paper, and paste 
it upon the tumbler which covers the cater- 
pillar you found upon the grape, apple, or 
other leaf. This will avoid confusion, as they 
one by one go into chrysalids. You can study 
each one separately, and you will know, as 
they come out of the chrysalids (which you 
have seen them make), just which is the 
moth of the grape, apple, or whatever your 
label indicates should be there. This you 
would forget more easily than one would 
suppose. 

You will thus know, also, at a moment's 
glance, how to feed them ; as each caterpillar 
requires to be fed with whatever kind of leaf 



IN TROD UCTOR Y. XXV11 

you found him upon. If upon the grape, give 
him grape leaves under the grape tumbler, 
and so on. You will soon begin to respect 
your caterpillar, and wonder at one thing 
at least about him, and that is, his power of 
selection. While there are a few, such as the 
common salt-marsh caterpillar, that will eat 
several things, as clover, plantain, and grass, 
the most of them (at least so far as I have 
tried them) will condescend to do nothing of 
the kind. They know what they want, and 
that is more than can be said of some people. 
There is one kind of small caterpillar often 
found on the grape-vine, and also on several 
trees, which, although it prefers grape, will 
eat other leaves ; but there are certain ones 
peculiar to the grape, and you may try one of 
these grape caterpillars with every other leaf 
of the garden, and he will turn away with dis- 
gust. Give him a grape leaf, and you are 
paid for your trouble at once. 

It sometimes happens that you will find a 
caterpillar far from any tree or plant. Then 
you can practice with him, and if you cannot 
find out from a book what he is, and what he 
should have, and fail to suit him with any 
variety of leaf at your command, you must 
either let him go, or see him die ! 



XXV111 INTRODUCTORY. 

III. If you have very large caterpillars, such 
as the elm, or royal walnut, or that of the 
Polyphemus moth, it is easy to make a glass 
box (bound with narrow ribbon, and fastened 
at the corners), perhaps eight inches square 
and six or eight high, or a box covered with 
wire gauze. Such a box is better than the 
round shades which you could buy, for you 
can watch the insect much better through 
them, and see it without distortion. It also 
admits some air, which they require in order 
to do well. It is needed for the large moths 
also, which under a tumbler could not expand 
their wings perfectly, much less make any use 
of them. Here you can watch the caterpillar 
dextrously fasten himself to the side of the 
glass, and change his coat once, twice, three, 
or four times, coming out each time fresh and 
bright, and with a keen appetite after the stupid 
supperless days each change costs him. You 
can see him spin his cocoon with such a won- 
derful skill that you look with amazement at 
the work ; or, if he changes into a smooth 
chrysalis (as the Asterias butterfly), you can 
see him fasten the loop around his breast, 
which attaches him to the glass strongly 
enough to keep him in one position (either 
through a long or a short sleep), and at last 



IN TROD UCTOR V. xxix 

stand the tug of opening for the escape of 
the butterfly. Besides this, if they are under 
glass, they are safe, and you too are safe in 
your knowledge of them. You know that 
whatever living thing is found under your 
glass when the chrysalis opens must have 
come out of that chrysalis, whether legiti- 
mately or not. The first Ichneumon fly I 
ever examined would have been brushed un- 
ceremoniously out of the window for a wasp, 
had he stolen out from an unguarded chrysa- 
lis. But, as he was born in prison, there he 
was. He came out of that chrysalis, and wasp 
or what not, he must be studied, and lo ! the 
curious parasite was brought to light. Revela- 
tions of this kind will sometimes be made, 
which one would be slow to believe possible, 
but for there being, in this way, no possible 
room for doubt. I have had two caterpil- 
lars, for example, which were just alike, spin 
each a cocoon exactly alike, each being un- 
der a glass of its own and labelled. After 
a time, on cutting open the cocoons carefully, 
so as not. to injure the chrysalis (which may 
be easily done), one cocoon was found to con- 
tain a perfect chrysalis. The other contained 
the dead caterpillar and four rather small oval 
chrysalids. Finally, the one perfect chrysalis 



XXX INTRODUCTORY. 

opened for the escape of a moth {Apatela 
americand), and the other four small chrysa- 
lids opened, and lo ! six large flies, much 
resembling the house fly, only more spiny or 
hairy. There must have been two flies in 
two of the cocoons, as there were certainly 
two extra ones under the glass ! 

IV. The immense variety of caterpillars, 
and the great difference in their habits, and in 
their new and finished life as moth or butter- 
fly, furnish constant surprise and pleasure in 
their study. From egg to imago (which means 
the perfect insect or butterfly) they are a study 
which cannot fail to excite wonder, and lead 
us, from admiration of their beauty and skill, 
to adoration of Him whose work is perfect 
though invisible, and whose ways, studied 
never so closely, are still "past finding out." 

To render our researches most effectual and 
satisfactory, we should not begin with statis- 
tics — studying how many thousands of moths 
and butterflies there are supposed to be, or 
how many species of insects have been classi- 
fied and named. Take " one to begin," as 
children say, and study it thoroughly. From 
books such as those of Edwards, Harris, Pack- 
ard, or Tenney, find the name of your cater- 
pillar, and know, before he changes, what sort 



INTRODUCTORY. xxxi 

of butterfly you are to have ; unless you are 
fortunate enough to find one not described, 
and then you can have the honor of naming 
him yourself. In this way the more scientific 
knowledge to be obtained from books you 
will soon find it impossible to do without. 
You will find that while it is pleasant to be 
sent from books to nature, it is more pleasant 
to find out secrets from nature, and let her 
send you to the books to verify them. 

V. But there are a few things you should 
know from books before you begin, and one is, 
that the whole class of butterflies and moths 
is called Lepidoptera ; and that this class 
contains only Butterflies, Moths, and Hawk- 
Moths. Flies, beetles, and other insects come 
under different classes. 

The Butterflies have delicate thread-like 
antennae, and these are always knobbed or 
thickened at the end. They always fly by 
day, and their caterpillars have sixteen legs — 
six small tapering, jointed ones (which are the 
true feet) from the first three rings back of 
the head, and a pair of larger and more fleshy 
legs to each of the other segments except the 
fourth, fifth, tenth, and eleventh. 

The Hawk-Moths have long narrow wings, 
and some of them look very much like little 



XXX11 INTRODUCTORY. 

humming-birds. Their antennae are tapering 
(usually broader in the middle), and never 
knobbed. They fly rarely during the day, 
but mostly in the morning and evening 
twilight. 

The Moths have not narrow wings. Their 
antennas are not knobbed but usually taper 
from base to tip, and are not broader in the 
middle like those of hawk-moths. Some of 
them are spined and some plumed. They fly 
. at night chiefly. So you can always tell a 
butterfly from a moth by the antennae, and a 
hawk-moth from a moth by its wings. 

The eggs are very different in size, shape, 
and color. Some are clear and round like little 
crystal beads, and formed on a leaf in a close 
circle. Sometimes they are in exact rows and 
of an amber color. Again, like those of the 
Polyphemus moth, they are chocolate-colored, 
circular, flat, and quite large. The eggs of 
this moth are shaped like biscuit, and have 
two white rings around the edge. Some eggs 
now before me, found to-day in a walk to the 
woods, and unknown to me, are white, as if 
made of milk glass. They are on a large 
forest leaf, and there are just ninety-one of 
them, and yet I could cover the whole with a 
thimble. They look like plain " chalk beads," 



1NTR0D UCTOR Y. XXXlll 

and may be easily counted with the naked eye, 
but look at them through a microscope, and their 
exquisite beauty appears. They are all pre- 
cisely alike, having sixteen or eighteen 
symmetrical grooves diverging from 
a small circle in the centre like this : fig. i. 

And what is more wonderful than. the finish 
of the egg, is, that the different kinds of eggs 
are always placed upon that kind of leaf, which, 
when the caterpillar is hatched, he will at once 
prefer to eat, except, of course, those you may 
have in your box, or under your tumbler, and 
then you will know what to feed them. But, 
as I said, the best way is to begin with the 
caterpillars, as you will seldom find the eggs 
in any other way, or have success in raising 
such, if you should. 

VI. How to kill a moth or butterfly. But- 
terflies and moths having so much vitality, 
it has been a puzzle how to kill them without 
injuring the delicate texture of their wings 
and without pain. A sure and easy way is 
the following : 

Take a glass jar with large mouth and 
close lid (a candy jar, six inches high and four 
inches diameter, with glass cover shutting over 
a rubber band is good), into which put four or 
five lumps of cyanide of potassium about the 



XXXIV INTRODUCTORY. 

size of a hickory-nut Dissolve enough plaster 
of Paris in water to cover the cyanide evenly 
over, forming a hard smooth surface. Put 
the moth into the jar, close the lid and let it 
remain five or six hours, after which it can be 
taken out and mounted. 

Have a board (smoothly planed) with a 
groove the size, in length and width, of the 
body of the moth. Place it upon the board 
with the body in the groove ; spread the wings 
evenly, and confine them by strips of paper 
placed across so as to hold the border of each 
wing. Take off the papers the next day, and 
with a pin through the thorax, fasten it to 
the cork gummed upon the box in which you 
place it. 



" The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie, 
The silken down with which his back is dight, 
His broad outstretched horns, his hairy thighs, 
His glistening colors and his glorious eyes." 

— Spenser. 




AMONG THE MOTHS AND 
BUTTERFLIES. 



BORN IN PRISON. 

I AM only a day old ! I wonder if every 
butterfly comes into the world to find 
such queer things about him ? I was born in 
prison. I can see right through my walls ; 
but I can't find any door. Right below me 
(for I have climbed up the wall) lies a queer- 
looking, empty box. It is clear, and a pale 
green. It is all in one piece, only a little slit 
in the top. I wonder what came out of it. 
Close by it there is another green box, long 
and narrow, but not empty, and no slit in 
the top. I wonder what is in it. Near it 
is a smooth, green caterpillar, crawling on the 
edge of a bit of cabbage leaf. I 'm afraid that 
bright light has hurt my eyes. It was just 
outside of my prison wall, and bright as the 
sun. The first thing I remember, even before 



2 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

my wings had opened wide, or I was half 
through stretching my feet to see if I could 
use them in climbing, there was a great eye 
looking at me. Something round was before 
it, with a handle. I suppose it was a quizzing- 
glass to see what I was about. I heard some- 
body say, " Oh ! oh ! " twice, just as if they 
wondered I was here. Then they held the 
great bright light close to the wall, till my 
eyes were dazzled. I don't like this prison. 




It is n't worth while to fly about. It seems as 
if I ought to have more room. There must be 
something inside that green box. It moves ! 
I saw it half tip over then, all of itself. I 
believe that caterpillar is afraid of it. He 
creeps off slowly toward the wall. How 
smooth and green he is ! How his rings 
move when he crawls ! Now he has gone up 



BORN IN PRISON. 



the wall. He has stopped near the roof. 
How he throws his head from side to side ! 
He is growing broader ! He looks just as if 
he was turning into one of these green boxes ! 
How that box shakes ! There, I see it begin 
to open ! There is a slit coming in the back ! 
Something peeps out ! A butterfly's head, I 
declare ! Here it comes — two long feelers, 
two short ones ! Four wings, two round spots 
on each of the upper pair, and none on the 
other two. Dressed just like me. I wonder 
why it hid away in that box ? 

First Butterfly. — " What made you hide in 
that green box ? " 

Second Butterfly. — " What box ? I have n't 
hid anywhere. I don't know what box you 
mean." 

First Butterfly. — " That one. You just 
crawled out of it. I saw you." 

Second Butterfly. — "That 's the first I 
knew of it. There are two boxes, just alike. 
Both empty. May be you were hid in the 
other 1 " 

First Butterfly. — " Ho ! There goes up our 
prison wall ! That 's the big hand that held 
the bright light. How good the air feels ! 
Now for a chance to try our wings ! Away 



we go 



II. 

THE GREEN HOUSE WITH GOLD NAILS. 

THERE is a very pretty caterpillar which 
lives upon the common milk-weed, or 
Asclepzas, which grows by the roadside, with 
pinkish clusters of flowers in summer, and 
curious bird-shaped pods in the fall. This 
caterpillar (whose name is Danais archippus 
— we might call him Archie, for short) is very 
pretty, and the butterfly is handsome ; but the 
crowning beauty of all is the chrysalis. It 
looks like a little green house, put together 
with gold nails. It is somewhat of the shape 
and size of a long, delicate pea-green acorn, 
and has a row of dots half-way around what 
would be the saucer of the acorn, with others 
about the size of a pin's head on different 
parts of the chrysalis, and you will say they 
are not like gold, but are real gold itself. 

The caterpillar, when full-grown, is about 
two inches long. It is cylindrical, and hand- 



THE GREEN HOUSE WITH GOLD NAILS. 5 

somely marked when mature, with narrow alter- 
nating bands of black, white, and lemon-yellow 
(Fig 4). These bands are not entirely even, 




FIG. 4. DANAIS CATERPILLAR. 



and occasionally run into each other. On the 
top of the second ring, or segment, are two 
slender, black, thread-like horns, and on a hind 
ring two more, not quite so long as those near 
the head. You can find it almost any day in July 
or August, if you look closely, 
on the underside of the broad 
ovate-elliptical leaves of the 
milk-weed. When this cater- 
pillar first leaves its conical, re- 
ticulated egg (Fig. 5, which 
is always found on the under 
side of the leaf, a miniature 
hanging basket, first yellow FIG - 5- 

d, i i i AN EGG, MAGNIFIED. 

then gray, as it devel- 
ops), it is perfectly cylindrical, and of nearly 
the same size throughout, and only twelve 




6 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

one-hundredths of an inch in length. In this, 
its first coat, it is a pale, greenish white, 
and the horns (front and back) are mere 
conical points, and it is covered with little 
black hairs or bristles, from minute warts on 
the back and sides. The breathing holes, or 
stigmata, show on each side, marked by a 
plain, narrow band. In the next coat, which 
it puts on in a few days, the black stripes ap- 
pear, and also faint lines of white and yellow, 
and the horns are longer. The third and last 
coat (before the final change to the chrysalis) 
is much the same, except that all the colors 
are brighter. The horns are shed with the 
skin, new ones having been formed beneath to 
take their place. These have been so carefully 
folded away that at first they scarcely appear ; 
but they are soon developed, or uncurled, and 
_ unbend so suddenly as almost 

to surprise one. 

When the caterpillar is 

ready to make its change into 

4|J|rr the chrysalis, it spins a little 

tuft or button of silk to the 

under side of the leaf (or the 

box-cover, if in prison), into 

which it fastens its hind legs, by their little 

hooks, then lets go the hold of its other legs, 




THE GREEN HOUSE WITH GOLD NAILS. 



and hangs, head downward, with the body 
curved, as in Fig. 6. 

In this position it remains about twenty- 
four hours when the marvellous 
change is wrought — the coat 
thrown off and the chrysalis 
(Fig. 7) developed. 

It was the accidental finding of 
this chrysalis, attached to a spray 
of wild carrot, that led me to 
study this particular species. It 
was a secret to me — this beautiful 
green-and-gold house. It held 
something. What, I must know ! Cutting the 
stem of the carrot, I brought the treasure care- 
fully into the house, covered it with a tumbler, 
and for a week it remained just the same. Then 
the green began to turn to a light purple, and 




FIG. 7. 
DANAIS CHRYSALIS. 





FIG. 8. FRONT VIEW. 



FIG. 9. BACK VIEW. 



lines began to show through the clear case. 
The front showed lines like a curtain, parted 
and folded back each way, like drapery to the 



8 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

bottom, as shown in Fig. 8. The back was 
curiously marked off, and looked like Fig. 9. 
The whole gradually took on a very dark 
purple hue, and I hoped to see it open and 
give up its treasure. But though I watched 
very carefully, it stole a march on me, and one 
morning I found its secret disclosed and flut- 
tering below the empty chrysalis, now but a 
clear, rent tissue, with here and there a pale 
gold dot. 

The butterfly is handsome and quite large 
(more than three inches across when the wings 
are spread), but not quite so beautiful as you 
would infer from his elegant house. He is of 
a rich tawny orange, bordered with velvety 
black on the upper side, and a lighter nankeen 
yellow below ; and has a large velvety black 
head, spotted with white. 

As I did not know how large he would be, 
nor when he would come out — for he did not 
invite me, as I said, to his "opening," — I had 
not given him a glass roomy enough for his 
wings to expand entirely at the first, as they 
must, or remain imperfect. So afterward, al- 
though he had the liberty of the whole room, he 
walked about with one wing folded back over 
his shoulder, like a lady's opera-cloak. But I 
kept him, and, learning that he came from the 



THE GREEN HOUSE WITH GOLD NAILS. 9 

milk-weed caterpillar, I went in quest of one. 
I was fortunate enough to find five in one 
search — three on one milk-weed, and two on 
another. I put them in a glass fernery, about 
one foot long and ten inches high, and fed 
them with fresh milk-weed leaves daily. Soon 
they mounted, one after another, to the top, 
and began to work on the under side of the 
glass cover. My curiosity was on the alert 
to see how each would build his green house. 
I had seen cocoons of various kinds spun ; 
but the glass-smooth chrysalis could not be 
spun. Oh, no ! It was altogether too nice 
work to be done in sight. There was no 
sound of hammer or sight of tools. It was all 
polished and painted and ready — and lo ! the 
inner layers of the caterpillar's skin had been 
the workshop, and the outer skin was taken 
down and discarded, like worthless scaffolding, 
when the green-and-gold house was ready. 
Pretty soon there were five of these houses 
hanging from the glass roof, side by side ; and 
now there are five empty homes still clinging 
by the little shiny black twist that fastens 
them firmly to the glass, and five handsome 
great butterflies, like the one shown in Fig. 
10. Only one of all these did I see break the 
shell and come out, and that only by the most 



IO AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

diligent watching. The butterfly was packed, 
head downward, at the bottom of the chrysalis 
— wonderfully packed, as all will admit who 
see him emerge, to shake himself out into 
something five or six times as wide, a beautiful 
uncramped butterfly. 




FIG. IO. DANAIS ARCHIPPUS. 



After seeing them brighten a bouquet, and 
watching them eat with their long spiral 
tongues from a little bed of moss sprinkled 
with sweetened water, I let them take a nap 
under a tumbler with a little pillow of chloro- 
formed cotton, and, unmarred even by a pin, 
they were ready to be laid away in a glass- 
covered box in their long, dreamless sleep. 



THE GREEN HOUSE WITH GOLD NAILS. II 

It has been said by some entomologists that 
each plant is visited by about five different in- 
sects. This year (1877) I have searched in 
vain on the milk-weed for the large, handsome 
caterpillar of the Danais archippus. That 
there must have been a few the occasional 
presence of the Danais butterfly has proved. 
Two were seen in Massachusetts, flitting gayly 
past me as if in mockery of a long and futile 
search I had just made for the caterpillar 
among a whole tract of milk-weed ; one in 
Brooklyn, and one or two in Pennsylvania, 
but they were exceedingly rare. The eggs 
were probably destroyed by spiders and other 
insects, but why to so much greater extent 
than the previous year is not so readily ex- 
plained. 

The only caterpillar (and that very abun- 
dant) which seems to have lived upon milk- 
weed this year, and found upon the same spot 
where the Danais caterpillars were so readily 
obtained last year — sometimes half a dozen 
upon one plant, — is a small one in comparison 
to that of the Danais, of a soft, woolly ap- 
pearance, orange-red in color, and about an 
inch in length, with hairs thickly set in starry 
clusters about each fleshy ring. Three of 
these abundant orange-red caterpillars have 



12 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

gone into shiny-brown chrysalids and come 
out, after a three weeks' sleep, into lavender- 
colored moths, perhaps an inch and a half 
across the expanded wings, the wings edged 
with a narrow orange border. They were 
"travelled" caterpillars, going in a box as 
chrysalids from Pennsylvania to Massachu- 
setts, coming out there, and travelling back as 
quietly as if long journeys were a matter of 
course. A second set of caterpillars of the 
same kind appeared in August, some of which 
are now (September) in their chrysalid homes. 
They made from their woolly, downy hairs 
(more soft than those of any other caterpillar 
I have seen) a soft cocoon like loose felt, and 
these four have gone up in pairs, two chrysa- 
lids in each thin cocoon. This little lavender 
moth is neat and quite pretty, but not to be 
compared for beauty to the Danais archippus. 
It has always been with a feeling akin to 
sadness that I have seen the walls of the 
beautiful home of the Danais butterfly break, 
and its beauty vanish, even for the release of 
the scarcely less lovely winged creature that 
sails off, regardless of its shattered home. It 
is not so strange after all that it should be 
able to leave it without regret, when one con- 
siders that no Danais butterfly has ever seen 



THE GREEN HOUSE WITH GOLD NAILS. 1 3 

the handsome house it lived in ! For before 
it can escape the walls grow very thin, the 
gold nails vanish, and when the rich brown 
and orange-yellow butterfly steps out so airily, 
there is nothing left but a clear bit of broken 
glass-like material to hint of the once exquisite 
green and gold home. 

But now the butterflies can see what sort of 
a home they had, if not their own, those of 
their neighbors, precisely like them. Here 
are green houses, as perfect after more than 
their usual fortnight has gone by as when 
first made. The gold nails still bright, and 
the walls intact. The butterfly has been re- 
quested to stay at home ; and if he had any 
objections, they vanished so soon as his house 
was placed in that safest of all places, the 
cyanide jar ! T 

Five of these houses (a very handsome 
block) I have now before me (September, 
1889), in a row, to remain permanently ; with 
the satisfaction of knowing that the imprisoned 
occupant can never realize what it has sacri- 
ficed for my pleasure, in thus staying at home. 

Making a collection of the eggs of butterflies 

1 The arresting of the transformation of the Danais, by placing the 
chrysalis for some hours in the cyanide jar used for killing the perfect 
insect, was a new thought to me, which experiment proved a success ; 
and which may open the way for the preservation of all chrysalids. 



14 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

and moths (or of any insects, in fact) is only 
second in interest to the collecting of the 
perfect insects themselves. And this is far 
more easy than one would suppose. Looking 
on the under side of a forest leaf, or of a plant 
or vine near your door, will often reveal clus- 
ters of eggs, that one not " on the search " 
would never dream of being there. The last 
summer I secured more than two dozen eggs 
of the Danais archippus by searching the 
leaves of the milk-weed ; never finding but 
one on a leaf, and that one always on the 
under side of the leaf, and so small as to 
escape notice but by a careful and practised 
eye. The egg is of a light color, and about 
as large as a " period" in the book you are 
reading. On the 6th of August last (1889), 
I watched one of these tiny eggs open, and I 
shall never forget the pleasure I experienced 
as I saw the little prisoner make a minute hole 
in the egg and put out a jetty black head, 
turning it this way and that, before he left his 
prison, as much as to say : " I wonder what 
sort of a world it is that I am about to step 
into ! " He was not long in deciding the 
question " Is life worth living ? " and bravely 
stepped forth to try it. I noted this as the 
greatest amount of intelligence in the smallest 



THE GREEN HOUSE WITH GOLD NAILS. 1 5 

compass that it had ever been my good-for- 
tune to witness! He tried "life" and found 
it, with a plentiful supply of milk-weed, well 
worth living, went through all his changes till 
he entered his royal castle of gold, and came 
forth to a higher life, which, as long as it 
lasted, was only one of unmixed enjoyment. 

On another leaf, from the maple tree, I 
espied seventeen glassy, bead-like eggs, and 
from them came seventeen of the beautiful 
Rosy Dryocampas, now waiting in their notched 
chrysalids their time of winged freedom. 

Upon a maple leaf on the tree, and upon a 
pretty high bough, I espied, last fall (Septem- 
ber, 1889), in walking by, what I at once 
divined to be the egg of a Polyphemus moth. 
Securing it, in spite of the smile of the friend 
with me, who thought it impossible to see an 
insect's egg of any sort at that distance, much 
less to determine its character, I am rewarded 
whenever I look at the fine large Polyphemus 
cocoon, now almost ready for its spring open- 
ing. Other clusters of eggs, larger in numbers 
than those named of the Dryocampa and 
Danais were found, some of most exquisite 
finish and beauty. The idea given above 
about " jarring the chrysalids," was trans- 
ferred to the eggs, and by placing such a 



l6 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

portion of any cluster found as I did not 
wish to have try life, in the cyanide jar, I 
found them ready to place in a box in my 
insect-egg collection. 




III. 

TWO FRONT DOORS, AND WHAT WAS BEHIND 
THEM. 

A BUTTERFLY in March! Velvety black, 
with wings bordered with a double row 
of yellow spots, and the hinder wings tailed, 
having also the added ornament of seven blue 
spots (a nebula of dotted blue points, with a 
frosted silvery sheen marking each spot). He 
is the Papilio asterias (Fig. 13). You have 
seen him in May, June, or July, hovering over 
a bed of phlox or other sweet flowers ; but 
unless you caught him "in the bud," or, of 
course, when a caterpillar, you would not have 
him in the middle of March. 



FIG. 12. CATERPILLAR OF PAPILIO ASTERIAS. 

The sole occupant of a glass fernery, sipping 
from sugar-sprinkled moss with his long, un- 



1 8 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

coiled tongue, he seems quite at home, and 
sees nothing of the snow now whitening every 
branch and tiny shrub — knows nothing of the 
" April-fool," which, as Susan Coolidge says, 
spring throws to the flowers outside — the 
daring crocus and daffodil. With his moss, 
and some fresh snowdrops in a vase, standing 
in his glass house for dessert — an extra drop 
of sweetened water in their pure cups — he is 
monarch of his little world. 

As a caterpillar, he was handsome. At first 
a tiny black caterpillar, with a white stripe 
running through the centre of the body and 
across the tail, and covered with some small 
black dots or points. The next coat has but 
one white stripe across the middle, on the 
sixth and seventh rings, with orange spots be- 
neath the black points, two white spots on his 
first ring, and a row of white spots on each side. 
Then at last he has a rich coat, striped with 
black and dark green, and ornamented with 
deep yellow spots (Fig. 1 2). But his chrysalis 
is quite plain, with nothing of the exquisite 
beauty of the green- and- gold house of the 
Danais. But when he leaves his shell, coming 
out by the narrowest possible front door, so 
that you must look sharp to see the thread-like 
opening, then he is much handsomer than the 



TWO FRONT DOORS. 19 

Danais butterfly. So, many people, living in 
plain tabernacles, and sometimes regarded 
homely by others, have something within, 
waiting to give great surprise, when they shall 
have escaped, through a narrow door, into a 
world of wonderful light and beauty ! 

The Papilio asterias is very fond, in his 
caterpillar form, of the wild carrot, or garden 




FIG. 13. PAPILIO ASTERIAS. 

carrot, parsley, or celery, and any of the warm, 
aromatic plants, as anise, caraway, and dill. 

This March butterfly, as a caterpillar, was 
eating his delicate carrot leaves and seeds last 
September at the same time with the Danais 
caterpillar, and as we brought them fresh 
leaves, day after day, and watched them go 
into their queer little houses at the same time, 
we did not know then but they would have 



20 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

their " opening " also, together. But while the 
Danais was ready to come out in a fortnight, 
or three weeks, the Asterias slept on until 
March — six months under his glass roof, with- 
out moving a hair's breadth, until he was out 
trying his new wings yesterday morning. 
Some other kinds of chrysalids have kept him 
company all this time, except that they have 
moved a little, and sometimes a good deal 
(when touched with a pencil, or slightly blown 
upon), showing the life within ; but not a 
particle — watch him never so closely — moves 




the Asterias. There were six chrysalids of 
this one kind under separate glasses ; all of 
which were taken as caterpillars, and each of 
which I had watched go into his separate 



TWO FRONT DOORS. 21 

house. It is not a cocoon, woven as some are of 
their own hairs, or spun from some hidden sub- 
stance through a spinneret; but like the Danais' 
it is formed under the caterpillar skin, and 
when he is suspended as a caterpillar, with a 
silken thread holding him about the body, as 
shown in the picture (Fig. 15), 
he drops off the entire skin, 
and it remains, as seen, beside 
his chrysalis, which is pale and 
nondescript in color, knobbed 
with many little round pro- 
tuberances, giving it a curious 
rather than pretty appearance. 
When one was out, the next 
thing was to look at the others, when lo ! a most 
surprising revelation ! Another chrysalis was 
empty, but the front door was very different ! 
Instead of a crack, a thread wide and half an 
inch long, in the upper part of the back (Fig. 
14, 1) — (the narrow black line in the chrysalis 
shows the butterfly's door), there was in the 
side (marked O in the picture of the chrysalis, 
and only belonging there to show this second 
front door) a perfectly round hole (Fig. 14, 2), 
the size of a pea ; and trying his new wings (four 
narrow, glossy, blue-black ones), was something 
more unlike the butterfly than was the circular 




22 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

door he came out of unlike the narrow door of 
the Asterias. Looking something like a saw- 
fly, and more like a wasp, it was a large ichneu- 
mon fly. The parent ichneumon, having stung 
the caterpillar and deposited the Qgg, the 
ichneumon was safe in his provided chrysalis 
home, when he woke up to a sense of his priv- 
ileges, and not only appropriated the house of 
the Asterias, but literally lived on the occu- 




ICHNEUMON FLY. 



pant, eating him up and then making his own 
way into the world, leaving the chrysalis 
entirely empty, and quite whole, with the 
exception of the round door. His head and 
slender body, antennae, and six feet, are all an 
ochre yellow. The eyes are large, jetty black, 
and oval-shaped, and back of them, on the top 
of the head, are three round, black beads, in a 
triangular position. His body is joined to his 
head and shoulders by a pedicel, so long and 



TWO FRONT DOORS. 23 

slender that he is able to work from it like a 
pivot, in all directions, giving as fine specimens 
of gymnastic operations as one often sees. 

His veined, clear wings are exquisitely 
glossy, and he polishes their steel blue till 
it burns like a mirror. He has the vanity of a 
Beau Brummel, judging by the great pains he 
hourly takes with his entire toilet. Grasping 
both his long trembling antennae at once, and 
smoothing them out again, as a philosopher 
would stroke his beard, nothing is left on one 
of their thirty-five segments large enough for 
a microscope to reveal. Then his wings and 
six legs go through the same operation, and 
he is ready for a fresh supply of sugared 
sweets. But alas, his mouth ! If he had claim 
to beauty in every other particular, one good 
look at this remarkable feature in a mirror 
would secure his humility for ever. An hour's 
close study with the microscope reveals no 
trace of beauty about it ! The most curious 
transformations do no good in redeeming its 
unmistakable homeliness. There are three 
projections from it — impossible to describe — 
two seem like short, curved legs, with which 
it clasps its throat, and the centre is a curved 
affair something like the letter V. It is 
very much like the mouth of a wasp, but in 



24 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

such constant motion that one cannot guess 
at its exact shape or manner of manipula- 
tion. 

It is well that it is so small that it does not 
detract from his looks except with the use 
of a microscope — and so long as he does not 
know it himself we will allow his vanity to be 
pardonable. 

One such parasite will, however, satisfy us, 
and we hope only the narrow front door will 
open for the rest of the Asterias chrysalids. 




IV. 



THE EARLY BUTTERFLY. 

WALKING up a rocky lane one warm 
day in the latter part of winter, my 
attention was called to a large, sombre-looking 
butterfly, lying flat upon a rock. Any sort 




FIG. 17. THE EARLY BUTTERFLY. VANESSA ANTIOPA. 

of butterfly, so out of season, was worthy of 
notice, and as this one was very quiet, as if 

25 



26 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

half asleep, I easily took him up and carried 
him home with me. He was handsomer upon 
inspection than at first sight I had imagined. 
The wings, though grave in color, were really 
a rich purple brown, with a broad margin of 
light yellow or buff, and six or seven spots of 
a lavender color inside of the border on all 
the wings. He had a queer, pinched-looking 
head, with sharp features, and furry front feet. 
I did not know his name, and as he was very 
restless, and beat constantly against his prison 
wall, I gave him his liberty. Some months 
after, on June 5th of the same year, I found on a 
shrub, in the same rocky lane, a very formidable- 
looking spine-covered caterpillar (Fig. 18). 




FIG. 18. VANESSA ANTIOPA CATERPILLAR. 

He was black, but dotted with minute ir- 
regular white spots, like tiny snow-flakes. 
There was a broad black line running down 
the back, interrupted by eight spots of brick- 
red. Each side, also, was dotted with white 
spots. There were seven rows of large spines r 
besides a row of very small but similar ones 
low down, just over the feet. Each of the 



THE EARLY BUTTERFLY. 2>J 

two centre spines on the ten rings were 
branched, as also the two on the last ring. 
As these spines were stiff and sharp, and did 
not lie particularly close to his body, he was 
treated in a very cautious manner until safe 
in his glass prison, although I have been told 
that these caterpillars, and in fact nearly all 
caterpillars, however formidable they may 
look, are in fact harmless. The fiercest one 
I have ever seen, that of the regal walnut 
moth {Ceratocampa regalzs), very large, and 
with horny spines stretched over the head, 
which when disturbed he shakes in a threaten- 
ing manner, is said to be perfectly harmless. 
One would certainly prefer to test this harm- 
lessness when he had thrown off his horns, 
and, after a smooth, chrysalis life, come out 
into the beautiful walnut moth. 

The caterpillar I had imprisoned did not 
at first like his confinement at all, and showed 
a most worthy persistency in attempts to solve 
the possibilities of escape, walking with entire 
contempt over the fresh leaves of the willow 
from which he was taken (and any species of 
which he w r ill eat), going up and down and 
across to every corner and joint of the box, 
until, at last, apparently satisfied that he was 
secure in his new abode, he wisely accepted 



28 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

the situation and began such a marvellous 
course of eating as showed that he had deter- 
mined, if he must be a prisoner, not to commit 
suicide by starvation. Leaf after leaf disap- 
peared and new ones were supplied, until, at 
length, he suddenly stopped eating, and began 
to weave a little thread and fasten himself 
securely at right angles with the side of the 
box, much in the same way as the Danais 
caterpillar. His head is round, large, and flat 
on the top, resembling the old-fashioned velvet 
" jockey cap." There is no red spot on the first 
two rings from the head, but on all the rest ; 
each spot, on close examination, being made 
of three spots close together in the form of a 
triangle, in this manner . \ Nothing could be 
much meeker, or in greater contrast to his 
first eager restlessness and snappishness, than 
his appearance after he has fastened himself 
by his hind feet firmly to the glass, with his 
head downward and bowed forward touching 
the glass, only a slight movement of the head 
now and then showing that he is alive. His 
three pairs of true feet he draws close together 
like a wedge, in short spasmodic movements, 
and then slowly opens them again. At last, 
after a day or more of this suspension, he 
throws off the caterpillar skin and shakes him- 



CHRYSALIS 

OF VANESSA 

ANTIOPA. 



THE EARLY BUTTERFLY. 29 

self into a brownish chrysalis, which operation 
takes but a few seconds after it has begun. 
But the chrysalis, which at first is soft and 
misshapen, has to assume its charac- 
teristic form, which it does by con- 
tracting and expanding and throwing 
out a protuberance, until, in about an 
hour, it has its shape, and its surface 
becomes hardened and the chrysalis 
complete. 

This was on the 6th of Tune, and fig. 19. 

J rutvsi 

on the 1 8th day of the same month 
the chrysalis opened, and lo ! there 
was my early winter butterfly, the Vanessa 
antiopa. This one was much fresher and 
prettier than the one found in February, 
and this I could well account for when I 
learned that this butterfly lives often all 
winter, hiding in some sheltered spot, stupid 
and almost dormant, but ready for the first 
sunny day, sometimes enticed from its hiding- 
place before the snow is quite gone, its wings 
somewhat worn and faded by its winter's ex- 
perience. Since then I know it as the earliest 
butterfly, and am not surprised to see it early 
in February heralding the spring far in ad- 
vance of any other. 




V. 



THROUGH A GLASS CLEARLY. 



WE do not like to see a beautiful thing 
at a disadvantage. When a large co- 
coon (Fig. 20, yellowish-brown and leaf en- 
wrapped), cut from a spray of wild raspberry, 
in September, had been watched for over six 
months, and showed no signs of life within, it 
was half given up as a useless affair. Inquiring 




FIG. 20. POLYPHEMUS COCOON. 



scissors, one day in March, stole an entrance 
into the cocoon by carefully snipping one end, 
and cutting spirally round an opening which 
revealed, unharmed, the living chrysalis within 



THROUGH A GLASS CLEARLY. 



(Fig. 21). It seemed certain — secret as it then 
was — that from out this brown-ringed casket 
some beautiful thing was preparing to emerge. 





FIG. 21. BACK VIEW. 



FIG. 22. FRONT VIEW. 



While watching it closely, a month later, one 
of the vest-like folds on the breast (Fig. 22) 
slowly began to part, revealing, first, a curious 
bridge of fringe across the opening. What 
could this be? The side of the clear-glass 
box, even, was too much obstruction for the 
impatient watcher. " I cannot look at this 
;- through a glass darkly," 
I said, as the lid was re- 
moved ; and slowly out 
came this amber fringe, 
a broad, beautiful antenna, yel- 
low stemmed from base to tip, 
with ochre-yellow fibres radia- 
fig. 23. antenna, ting from it in a perfect plume. 
The other soon followed. So large, so full, so 
beautiful antennae I had not seen before. 




32 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

Now for the microscope. Ah, the difference 
between an obstructing and a revealing glass ! 
Between seeing through a glass darkly and 
through a glass clearly ! A richly-colored 
centre stem, of thirty-one joints, and two fila- 
ments to each joint, of exquisite finish and 
symmetry. Then a little wider parting of the 
vest (no breaking of the chrysalis), now and 
then a shiver and a spasmodic movement of 
the whole chrysalis, with a little further exit — 
another shiver, another waiting, and in an hour 
and a half out came a beautiful (but still limp 
and contracted) Polyphemus moth (Fig. 24). 

A pot of hepatica stood ready in the box 
for him to cling to while expanding his wings, 
but the slight, fresh stems proving too frail 
for his weight, the danger of a fall was pre- 
vented by putting a stick into the earth beside 
the hepatica, to which he immediately clung, 
and gently unfolded his soft-hued ochre wings, 
bordered with gray, showing two large and 
elegant eye-spots on the hinder ones, of a 
deep blue-black, with a transparent oval in 
them, clear as a bit of inserted mica. In the 
upper wings were two smaller transparent 
ovals ; a collar, edged with lake color, and 
two spots of lake-red, edged with black on the 
edge of the upper wings, completed his beauty. 
The body, a soft brown ochre, was furry and 



34 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

feathery as an owl. Large eyes, six short 
furry dark-brown legs, a softness of blending 
in color, and a gentleness and grace of motion 
crowned the whole. Lifting his large wings, 
his flight was slow and graceful ; no hurried 
fluttering and wild beating against the glass 
when a prisoner ; no dashing about the room 
when at liberty. 

If ever a name was a misnomer, it is surely 
so in his case. Polyphemus, a one-eyed furi- 
ous giant, a murderer and greedy cannibal, for 
him to give a name to this two-eyed, gentle-na- 
tured, and apparently tongueless moth (whom 
no sweets could tempt), simply because it 
is large ! As well might he be called the 
Tower of Babel, Behemoth, Leviathan, or any 
other great thing of earth or sea. He is, how- 
ever, not likely himself to apply to the legisla- 
ture for redress for this grievance. 

The inside of this cocoon is finished with 
the hardness and smoothness of the inside of 
an almond shell which it closely resembles, 
except being much larger. 

The larva of this moth is described as of 
a bluish-green color, with a yellowish-brown 
head, living upon the oak, elm, and lime trees ; 
the cast-off skin was enclosed in this cocoon. 
The disposition of the eye-spotted ogre was 



THROUGH A GLASS CLEARLY. 



35 



well tested in the artist's saloon. No philoso- 
pher ever showed more patience and dignity 
under repeated trials at the hands of a pho- 
tographer than he displayed in the hands of his 
persecutors, with no knowledge of the cause to 
stimulate his vanity and inspire his courage. 

I said the mystery wrapped up in the brown 
cocoon was " a secret." In studying Natural 



ilPNJPf 








FIG. 25. POLYPHEMUS CATERPILLAR. 

History we often learn the first part of a lesson 
last ; sometimes the middle part first ; some- 
times it is years after we get part first before 
we can find part second, even of a short, small 
lesson. The pages of nature's book are count- 
less, but they are not all numbered, and some- 
times we have to stop and wait in a most 
interesting place. It is all the pleasanter when 



36 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

we complete the round. After the Polyphe- 
mus moth had been mounted for months, a 
beautiful caterpillar was given to me (Fig. 25). 
He was very large ; of a handsome pea-green 
color, with little points of golden yellow, which, 
in certain lights, had a beautiful pearly appear- 
ance, like frosted silver. There were five or 
six of these points on each ring. The feet and 
the head were a light brown, almost exactly 
the color of an almond shell, and the green 
V-shaped tail was bordered with a line of 
darker brown. 

He was given to me one afternoon in Au- 
gust, just as I was about to go out for a walk. 
After admiring him, and noticing carefully his 
colors and peculiar shape, I said, " I will 
sketch him on my return." But there are 
some things which do not wait upon our 
leisure, and a caterpillar, just ready to retire to 
private life, is one. So, when I returned to 
him, two hours after, the only way he could be 
sketched was with his head and three or four 
front rings peering out from a well-begun 
cocoon. He had already attached the leaf (it 
was a maple, as he was found near a maple 
tree) to the side of the glass box, and drawn it 
about him partially, and was working very 
busily. 



THROUGH A GLASS CLEARLY. 7)7 

My disappointment in his special hurry was 
relieved, however, by finding, a few days later, 
and in quite a different locality, another cater- 
pillar of the same kind, which is now before 
me, clinging to a spray of oak leaves, eating 
and resting as he chooses, with a sort of elegant 
leisure. Turning away from a maple leaf, he 
shows his preference for the oak ; clasping the 
stem of the leaves firmly with his ten false 
feet, he moves his brown head silently back 
and forth, while the leaf melts away before him 
very steadily. He has the same disposition 
manifested by the Polyphemus moth, which he 
anticipates. He never jerks about, when dis- 
turbed, or shows the slightest irritation, as do 
many of the caterpillars, and is so quiet in 
every movement that you feel sure he is well 
contented with life as he finds it, with no 
regrets for the past or speculations about the 
future. A perfect contrast to him is the little, 
jerky, impatient caterpillar of the quince, in a 
box beside him, who, if touched the most 
lightly, will actually spring up and throw him- 
self entirely over, in the most astonishing 
manner. Between these extremes, every va- 
riety of disposition prevails among them. 
When at full length, this Polyphemus cater- 
pillar is about three inches long ; but when 



38 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

hunched up like a half-closed Chinese lantern 
— as he now lies, eating his oak leaf — he seems 
but little over an inch in length. 

The edge of the first ring, which comes 
close round like a hood over the brown head, 
is light lemon yellow, and the upper or second 
joint of the true feet, and a narrow border 
above the brown feet, are also yellow. The 
diagonal side stripes are yellow, also ; the 
spiracles — forming a dash near the centre of 
each diagonal line — are a lake-colored brown. 
Each one of the diagonal lines is finished at 
either end with a round orange or gold-colored 
knob (like the old-fashioned "frog button"), 
with a single white bristle in each. 

This marvellous detail of finish in even the 
smallest insect excites our constant wonder 
and admiration. 

The cocoon spun so suddenly by the first of 
these two caterpillars is exactly like the one 
cut from the wild raspberry, except that the 
color is a lighter yellow. The leaves are 
drawn over it in the same manner, and firmly 
glued to the cocoon. The mystery which this 
had seemed before was solved by witnessing 
him make the cocoon, just as you would better 
understand the Chinese ball within a ball after 
seeing one cut. He first bent the leaf in the 



THROUGH A GLASS CLEARLY. 39 

position required, drawing it up at the end, 
and lapping it over at the side. Then he 
spun the fine, creamy threads of silk, weaving 
back and forth very dexterously, connecting 
the opening of the leaves with the side of the 
box. Contracting his body more than one 
half within this leafy outline, he worked him- 
self adroitly into positions to form its sym- 
metrical outline. I watched his work until 
very late in the evening, and the next morn- 
ing further watching was useless. He had 
"wrapped the drapery of his couch about him, 
and lain down to pleasant dreams." 

More than six months he slept in his cocoon ; 
and now in April, 1878, he is a handsome 
Polyphemus moth. Very curiously, he came 
out just one day later than the one last year 
from the wild raspberry. That was on April 
19th, and this came out April 20th. This 
moth is not quite so bright as the male one, 
and the antennae are not so large and plume- 
like ; but otherwise it is equally handsome. 
The second of the two caterpillars, as it spun 
up a little later, is not yet out, but the cocoon 
has been peered into, and the chrysalis, in the 
increasing clearness of its rings, and its active 
movements when disturbed, gives promise of 
an early exit. There is no danger of injuring 



40 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

the moth by carefully opening the cocoon 
which holds the chrysalis, and then its change 
can be watched as it turns from a dark brown 
to a lighter shade, and becomes almost trans- 
parent before it opens. Since writing the 
above, a friend sent me from another State, a 
box with a note — which was read before open- 
ing the box — which said, two handsome cater- 
pillars would be found in the box. On trying 
to remove the lid, I found something was the 
matter ; when lo, instead of what was promised 
me, two large, scarcely completed cocoons ! 
My disappointment would have been greater 
had I not known them at once as belonging 
to the Polyphemus moth. They were busy 
travellers, building as they went, and in one 
short journey completing a house, with a 
speed and perfection of finish which puts 
greater architects to shame. 

The Polyphemus caterpillar is more easily 
raised than that of any of the other large moths. 
The eggs are flat and biscuit-shaped, of a 
chocolate color, appearing like little frosted 
cakes. I have had no difficulty in rearing them 
from the egg. As soon as they leave it they 
are ready for the oak or maple leaf, and eat 
quietly and almost continuously, making their 
changes with no trouble, such as the Cecropia 



THROUGH A GLASS CLEARLY. 4 1 

and other horned or knobbed caterpillars 
have. This year, 1890, I have had two come 
out early in March ; the first, with broad an- 
tennae, appearing on March 9th, and the other, 
with narrow antennae (the female moth), on 
March 19th. It has remained almost perfectly 
quiet, has taken no food, being, so far as I can 
ascertain, tongueless, and has laid 137 eggs 
on the sides of the glass box, hardly seeming 
to feel itself a prisoner. The wings are not in 
the least marred by flying about in the box al- 
though eight days have passed since it left the 
chrysalis. The beauty of this moth is only 
excelled by the gentleness of its disposition, 
which cannot fail to make it a favorite with all 
who prefer quiet manners to bustle and vain 
show. 

DOUBLE DOORS. 

In Saunders' " Insects Injurious to Fruits," 
p. 175, he says of the Polyphemus moth, 
" An Ichneumon fly, Ophion macrurum, the 
same as that which preys on the Cecropia 
moth, is a special and dangerous foe." 

I have now (April 12, '90) a large Ichneu- 
mon fly which to-day came out of its round 
"front door" from a fine Polyphemus cocoon. 
This is much larger than the Ophion macru- 
rum, and answers to the description and figure 



42 AMONG THE MOTHS AMD BUTTERFLIES. 

of Ophion bili7teatus (Say,) figured on p. 175 
of Saunders. An Ichneumon, answering to 
0. macrurum, keeps him company under 
an adjoining glass, and he walked out of the 
chrysalis of an Asterias butterfly a few days 
before, and is figured and described in this 
volume in the chapter "Two Front Doors," 
etc. So they are not wholly confined to one 
variety of moths or butterflies, satisfied with 
stolen winter quarters and food, wherever they 
can obtain it. The Ophion bilineatus is wholly 
a russet brown in color, except his very large 
black eyes (which, appearing to be six in num- 
ber, two very large, very black, and very prom- 
inent, and four smaller ones, form no small 
part of his head). The two pairs of wings 
are transparent, the legs long and spined, the 
body very curiously curved and broadening to 
the end, and the jointed antennae nearly 
two inches in length, and quite as long as the 
body. He is fond of sweets, and uses his very 
curious mouth dexterously enough in securing 
grain after grain of the sugar placed for him. 
It is sad to look at the large well-formed 
cocoon, with its usual ornamentation of the 
maple leaf drawn so nicely about it, and think 
the poor spinner was working so faithfully for 
his direst enemy instead of securing a safe 



THROUGH A GLASS CLEARLY. 43 

resting-place for himself, where he should 
sleep into his own rightful robe of beauty. 
The little " front door " revealed the fact that 
the Polyphemus had become the prey of the 
Ichneumon — (the round door not being quite 
as large as a " shot " ;) — and on cutting open 
the cocoon I learned that the chrysalis within, 
instead of being eaten and broken, was scarcely 
marred at all ; unbroken save the small place 
of exit, as, in this case, two doors were needed 
for his escape. But the weight ! Instead of 
the solid body of the true chrysalis only a per- 
fect shell remains. 



VI. 



HOW I CAUGHT A BEAR. 



I WAS walking quite alone, when a slight 
noise attracted my attention. I looked 
about me, when, close at hand, and deliberately 
advancing toward me, I saw — a bear (Fig. 26). 

I was not in the least alarmed, which proves 
how much there is in a name, for I did not then 
know he was a bear. 

Determined to capture him, I armed myself 
with a small twig and a very small cage in the 
shape of a tumbler. 

Instead of resisting, he coiled up quickly 
into a ball, was tipped into the cage, and this 
soon inverted over a piece of white paper on a 
book. 

Thinking a leaf might attract him, I put 
a bit of cabbage leaf under the glass, and soon 
he was forgetful of his imprisonment in satisfy- 
ing what proved to be an almost insatiable 
appetite. 

44 



HOW I CAUGHT A BEAR. 4$ 

He spent his time for some days in devour- 
ing leaves and taking exercise by rapidly 
travelling about his small prison. 



FIG. 26. YELLOW-BEAR CATERPILLAR. 

Eat, march, eat, march, was his programme, 
until, not satisfied with one den, (Fig. 27) he 
made himself another, and having sealed him- 
self in, I saw him as he was, no more. I after- 
ward found that inside of the second den he 
formed another (Fig. 28). His winter quarters 
were secure. 




FIG. 27. COCOON. FIG. 28. CHRYSALIS. 

This was in September. He slept undis- 
turbed until March, and then he began to go 
about again quite freely, but in a new coat. 
He ate, too, but very delicately. Not leaves, 
but a dainty sip of honeyed sweets. In Sep- 
tember he was a yellow-bear caterpillar. In 
March he was an ermine moth (Fig. 29). 



4© AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

A white miller, we should say, but when we 
part his wings we see his body is yellow striped 
lengthwise, and alternating with each stripe 
has a row of black dots. And on his wings 
there is the merest point of a black dot (one 
on each fore wing, and two on the hinder 
ones), so very small that you would not at 
first notice them. But they belong to him, 
and are always there. For he is not the only 
bear we have watched through this change, 
and four or five quiet, dreamy, pointed, black- 
dotted moths are now in a box close by me, 
all alike, except a little different in size. 




FIG. 29. VIRGINIA ERMINE MOTH. 

These are the Virginia ermine moths. 

In the same box are some many-spotted 
ermine moths, something like leopard moths ; 
but whether tiger, bear, or leopard, the name 
is not derived from the nature, as all are quite 
meek, and much more like a lamb. 

There is one of these white millers beside 
me now as I write. The same tiny speck on 
each fore wing, the same two dots on the 



HOW I CAUGHT A BEAR. 47 

hinder wing. He, too, went into his den in 
September, and came out in March (1879), 
so white and furry about the head that if as a 
caterpillar he should be called a yellow bear, 
as a moth I should call him a polar bear. 

The golden eggs of the Virginia ermine 
moth turn a sage-green color (almost golden 
green) just before hatching, and the little 
caterpillars (about one twelfth of an inch in 
length) are lemon yellow, with dark sage- 
green heads. 

A good deal has been said about the im- 
possibility of raising moths and butterflies in- 
doors. The chrysalids, we are told, should 
be left out-of-doors in some damp place, only 
secured from the worst weather, and shielded 
from positive storms. It is pleasant to have 
such proof that this is an error, as I have had 
the good fortune to secure from the moths 
themselves, who, in spite of these assertions, 
have opened their various prison doors for me 
in the past and present month (February and 
March, 1890), by scores. Every chrysalis of 
the Io Saturnia (twenty in all) has given up 
a perfect moth, and several other kinds have 
also had their opening ; among them the Chce- 
rocampa, the cabbage butterfly, and two Vir- 
ginia ermine moths. Many more chrysalids, 
large and small, await their coming winged 



48 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

life, without the shadow of a disappointment, 
if you judge by clearly alive chrysalides. 
And instead of an out-door, all-weather ex- 
posure, they have been in a comfortably 
warm room devoted wholly to them, with 
no extra moisture, and making no trouble. 
The gentle coming of these ermine moths — 
one day a dark-brown casket, the next, with- 
out noise or observation, a snowy-winged 
silent thing of beauty, the most touching 
thing about them always being the little tiny 
speck of a black dot — " one on each fore 
wing, and two on the hinder ones " — that 
these minute dots, belonging exclusively to 
these unobtrusive little white moths, should 
be given them, year after year, never varying, 
and so marking them as veritable "Virginia 
ermines," shows as much a superior care as 
the noting of the " sparrow's fall," or the 
"numbering of the hairs of our head." As 
silently as they come, so silently do they live 
their little life, sipping the sweets offered 
them with a delicate amber tongue, laying 
their eggs, small, round as tiny marbles, of a 
golden-yellow hue ; scarcely lifting their feath- 
ery wings to fly from one offered flower to 
another, and then, not waiting for their life 
to be taken from them, falling asleep unjarred, 
but not unmourned, in their little box prison. 



VII. 



CRUMPLE-WING. 



CRUMPLE-WING (Fig. 30) came out of 
his winter's sleep in March. He went in 
in September. He was a salt-marsh caterpillar 





FIG. 31. SALT-MARSH CATERPILLAR 

(Fig. 31, the Arctia acrea). But he seemed 
very much at home in an inland garden. He 
was on the croquet ground, plodding his way 

4 49 



50 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

among rolling balls and quick footsteps, when 
he was made a prisoner. 

He lived on grass, plantain and other leaves, 
until he wove his yellowish-brown hairy cocoon 
under his glass tumbler. 

I don't know why he came out of his long 
rest with a crumpled wing. I think he had 
plenty of room under his glass, and no one 
touched him before he was perfectly free and 
walking about in his queer one-sided manner. 
When a Danais butterfly, on coming out of 
his chrysalis last summer, exhibited a marred 
and crumpled wing, I knew it was because he 
had been confined in too small a space for his 
wings to expand fully ; and the form of the 
pupa itself had been compressed by the posi- 
tion in which it was formed, so as to resemble 
in shape half an acorn-cup rather than a whole 
acorn, which it looks a good deal like when 
perfect. Another Danais had its wing marred 
by touching it very gently with a pencil's 
point, in the eagerness to see it expand more 
quickly. The slightest touch at that time 
will injure this delicate fabric, than which 
nothing in nature seems more susceptible of 
harm. But there was, no doubt, a hidden 
reason for Crumple-wing's misfortune, at what- 
ever time it occurred. His right wings are 



CR UMPLR- WING. $ I 

perfect and quite handsome. The hinder left 
wing but half unrolled, and much shrivelled. 
The hinder wings are a rich ochre-yellow ; 
the front pair white, dotted with black and 
ochre-lined. His back is ochre-yellow, with 
seven black spots down its centre ; six on the 
yellow, and one on the last ring of the body, 
which is white. Two rows of black spots 
ornament the sides, and there is one on the 
under side of the body also. His antennae 
are long and graceful, and the microscope 
shows them to be variegated in color, and 
with spiky hairs, instead of being feathered. 
His head and neck-cape are tinged with ochre. 
At first he appeared so indifferent to food that 
it seemed doubtful whether he had a tongue ; 
and after being tempted in vain with sugared 
water, he was left some days to work out the 
question without it. But when next offered a 
chance to break his fast, it was amusing to see 
how eagerly he thrust out his short, amber- 
colored tortgue and drew up the sweets, as 
a child would sip lemonade with a straw. 
After his long fast, before eating, he had 
strength enough to tow another moth and 
two empty cocoons (which chanced to be 
caught together near him) all about his box, 
having entangled the claw of his foot in the 



52 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

loose hair of the empty chrysalis cover. One 
or two dead moths were placed purposely near 
him. He walked slowly about them, looking 
at them with the appearance of an anxious 
doctor or surgeon, studying the case for a 
time, and then walking off, evidently satisfied 
that hope was gone when no sign of life could 
be perceived. It never seemed to occur to 
him to attend to his own case, which was, 
however, well enough, as it would have re- 
quired as much skill to unroll his shrivelled 
wing into symmetry as to put into their dead 
forms a new life. Just as he stands now, with 
his head and left wing hidden under a leaf of 
the blooming hepatica, you would never think 
of calling him Crumple-wing. His best foot 
is foremost. He is a fine-looking Acrea. 




FIG. 32. ARCTIA ACREA. 



VIII. 

UNDER THE CAPE. 

THE very day Crumple-wing gave up trying 
to inspect others, or hold on to his own 
life any longer, another Arctia acrea came 
out. His brown cocoon was larger than 
Crumple-wing's. In fact so much larger than 
any one of the kind I had been watching, that 
a very fine specimen was looked for from it. 
As other Acreas had appeared, who went in 
about the same time, he was daily expected, 
and a hope (which rather grows less as moths 
increase in number), was indulged that his 
exit might be witnessed. A slight appearance 
of a disturbance at one end of the cocoon had 
been noticed, and he was closely watched. 
Just as the tea bell rang another look was 
given to his glass box ; when lo ! there was a 
small oval opening in one end of the cocoon, 
and the moth was rapidly advancing up the 
side of the box to the top. But worse than 

53 



54 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

Crumple-wing ! Except that he was sym- 
metrical, his yellow black-dotted body was 
only partially covered by a very short white 
cape, and two pairs of very short wings, look- 
ing like the old-fashioned double-cloak capes, 
without the cloak (Fig. 33). 

Watching him for a little, with a curious 
mixture of wonder and pity, we left him ; 
when lo ! on returning in half an 
hour he was all right — as perfect 
and handsome a specimen of the 
white-winged Acrea as could be 
found (Fig. 34). His cloak had 
only been packed under, his cape. 
And this is the way he looked be- 
fore he shook it out. 
If another caped moth is seen before he has 
shaken out his entire garment, something 
more than a tea bell will be needed to prevent 
a careful watching of the progress. There 
was nothing of the limp appearance of a new 
butterfly, to suggest any further development 
of wings as necessary. His cape was snowy 
and full and downy, and he walked off with 
the buoyancy and strength of a fully developed 
and perfectly dressed creature. The black 
dots upon his wings are more exactly sym- 
metrical than in any of this kind before 




UNDER THE CAPE. 



55 



noticed. By actual count almost precisely 
equal in number, as well as alike in shape and 
size. The color under the throat is a rich 
orange, and also of the thighs ; the legs being 
five-jointed, alternating in black and white. 
The joints resemble the divisions in the stems 
of rushes, as is the case with those of most 
moths when examined with the microscope. 
The last joint terminates in a sharp, black 
claw, with which he can cling with a force not 
to be overcome without danger of breaking. 
His antennse are spiked,instead of feathered ; 
and if Crumple-wing is an Arctia, as we have 
supposed, and he seems to answer the descrip- 
tion of that moth exactly, this is one of the 
same class, without the ochre-lined front and 
the ochre hinder wings. When at rest his 
wings are roofed or sloped downward, covering 
the yellow spotted body entirely. 




FIG. 34. ARCTIA ACREA. 




IX. 

THE ARCTIAN AND ICHNEUMON. 

THERE were still two chrysalids of the 
Arctian left, and two days after the one 
had stolen out from under his double cape (all 
moths and butterflies have the double-cape 
appearance), one of these chrysalids was seen 
slowly ascending the glass prison wall, piloted 
by the head and fore-legs of an ash-colored 
moth, creeping slowly along with his heavy 
brown house on his back ! 

It was another Arctia, or " false ermine 
moth," as those of this gray color are some- 
times called. After a little while the chrysalis 
fell, and the moth was free ; but, as he had 
"jarred in the gate" (from not being able 
from some reason to throw off the chrysalis so 
soon as he ought), his wings were somewhat 
cramped, and he looked like a second cousin 
to Crumple-wing. 

After a supper of sweetened water, and 
upon the lighting of the gas (which always 
puts fresh life into every fibre of a moth), he 
56 



THE ARCTIAN AND ICHNEUMON. 57 

shook out his wings very respectably, and 
showed his appreciation of light as the first 
object in life. He was of a soft glossy ash color, 
and his body had three rows of black dots run- 
ning lengthwise down the centre and sides. 

It is no slander to say that he was double- 
tongued, which, however much to be depre- 
cated in human beings, is really nothing against 
one who uses his tongue only to gather sweets. 

While some of the larger moths seem to 
have no tongue, the Arctians are usually sup- 
plied with two. They are coiled up side by 
side, sometimes joined together lengthwise, 
and sometimes quite separate. 

The last remaining chrysalis was just like 
the one of the ash-colored moth, but when it 
opened, instead of the expected Arctian, out 
came a large slender-bodied Ichneumon fly ! 
his head bright yellow and his legs alternating 
with honey-yellow and black. His wings are 
a brilliant steel blue. He resembles the Ich- 
neumon that came out of the "round" front 
door of the Asterias, but is larger, and has 
a sword-shaped borer nearly half an inch in 
length, giving him rather a formidable appear- 
ance, as he comes buzzing in his " April fool ! " 
with a bold whirr, instead of stealing in softly 
with the meekness of the feather-winged 
Arctian. 



THE WHITE ERMINE MOTH. 

I FOUND him one November day, 
A stiffened circlet at my feet, 
And made him prisoner in my room, — 
His brown coat glistening with the sleet. 

Awhile he lay as still and stiff, 
As though his little life were o'er, 

Then yielding to the new-found warmth, 
Shook off the icy pearls he wore, 

Surveyed awhile his crystal walls, 
Shut in from liberty and — cold ; 

Then built an inner prison wall, 
Closely his body to enfold. 

He seemed to sleep an endless sleep, 
Silent and still so long he lay, 

When lo ! in robes of snowy white 
He sprang to life one winter's day ! 




XI. 



A HUNDRED TO ONE. 



WE had been looking in vain for caterpil- 
lars on grape-vine, walnut, and syca- 
more, when we stopped before a large wood- 
bine, which threw its clusters over the side of 
my friend's piazza, in Pittsfield, Mass. We 
sent our eyes upon a voyage of discovery, 
and peering among the thick matted mass of 
green — 

" Oh, here is a fine fellow," exclaimed 
Teddy, the eager little boy being the first 
to discover a pale green caterpillar, so nearly 
the color of the vine that the similarity was his 
greatest protection. 

" Here is another, and another ! They 
seem to be out in force to-day ; but these 
are so high up — how shall I reach them ? " 

" I '11 get a step ladder," said Teddy ; and 
disappearing behind the corner of the piazza, 
he soon came back tugging the heavy steps, 

59 



60 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

and placed them under the woodbine. Now 
for some tumblers. They were soon brought, 
and the caterpillars imprisoned before they 
knew it, eating on the leaf which had been 
clipped from the vine without even disturbing 
their dinner. It was well we secured as many 
as we did, or even one moth might not have 
repaid us ; for the caterpillar of the woodbine, 
in common with many others, has a secret 




FIG. 35. CHCEROCAMPA PAMPINATRIX. 

little enemy, from which he is not apt to 
escape. These nice-looking ones with such 
good appetites, however, did not seem to have 
any lurking danger. But one can not always 
tell. Damocles was not the only one over 
whose head hung a sword while he was enjoy- 
ing his repast. Teddy selected two of the 
best — not to keep himself — but for the friend 
who was helping him hunt them. The cater- 



A HUNDRED TO ONE. 6 1 

pillars were soon separated ; Teddy's remain- 
ing where they were found, and the two others 
going a long journey. Pretty soon some 
strange things appeared on Teddy's caterpil- 
lar. He ate on, but looked rather dispirited, 
as if he had caught a glimpse of the hair by 
which the fatal sword was suspended. Soon he 
was walking about with something all over his 
back, which made him look as if he had taken 
a bath, and then rolled about in a box of rice ! 
(Fig. 36.) The microscope showed these rice 
grains to be perfect cocoons, white and silky, 
and each looking as if a little cover were fitted 
to one end. Something 
moves inside of these. 
Some of the little in- 
truders are still working fig. 36. caterpillar with 

. . ICHNEUMON CHRYSALIDS. 

on the inside 01 their 

rice-houses, polishing the ceiling and giving 

the finishing touch to the walls. 

By and by they are completed, and then 
the woodbine caterpillar begins to grow 
weaker. After a week or two, these little 
covers begin to fly open, and as they lie back 
on their hinges, out of each one creeps a small 
fly, and begins to go up the glass. 

He is a prisoner, and we can study him. 
He is one of our old friends, a species of 



62 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 



Ichneumon, with ugly mouth, jointed antennae, 

hooked feet, amber legs, and thin, narrow 

wings. He is very small, — but there are so 

many ! The poor caterpillar 

cannot stand it. A hundred to » 

one is too much, and by the time 

that over one hundred of these 

swords have pierced his body, fig. 37. 

he was, as Teddy's grandmother said, " very 

dead." Here is his likeness, which an artist 

took for Teddy's friend. You can only see his 

head, one or two wings, and one foot (Fig. 37). 





But the two caterpillars which took the 
journey seemed to escape this trouble. They 
both soon went into chrysalids. One drew a 



A HUNDRED TO ONE. 63 

leaf about him, and fastened it with a few 
glossy hair lines to the bottom of the glass ; 
the other made a hint of a cocoon, with a thin 
network of gauze-spun threads, and twenty 
days after came out a pretty moth — the fore 
wings olive gray, banded and shaded with 
olive green, and the hind wings a reddish- 
brick or rust color. Both pairs of wings were 
uniquely scalloped. The chrysalids were, first 
a sort of mulberry color, irregularly spotted here 
and there, and the one which opened, growing 
brown (and a very dark brown between some 
of the centre rings), just before coming out. 
The second chrysalis (Fig. 39), formed some 
days later, is brown and dark-ringed ; but as it 
is a fortnight since the moth 
made his appearance, he is 
taking it very leisurely, if he 
appear at all. This cater- 
pillar and moth answer to 
the description given by Harris of the Chcero- 
campa, or hog caterpillar (which seems as 
great a misnomer as that of the Polyphemus), 
from a fancied resemblance of the head to 
that animal — the head of the caterpillar being 
small, and the fourth and fifth rings very large, 
and tapering to the small head. 

The moth has been named Pampinatrix, 



64 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

from its living on the shoots of the vine. 
The caterpillar lives upon the grape, as well 
as the woodbine. In Harris' description, it is 
said that the moth leaves the chrysalis " in 
the month of July, of the following year." 
But this (as most other moths) has an oppor- 
tunity of trying the world twice in the course 
of a year. Some very large caterpillars — four 
inches in length, and as large as one's finger 
or thumb — closely resembling the Chcero- 
campa in shape, have since been found on 
a woodbine in Pennsylvania. They were, 
however, so completely covered with the 
" rice-houses " (more than a hundred to one) 
that they were not kept. Only, the parasites 
were brushed from one into a box, and now 
the "syrup cups" are opening, and a perfect 
colony of Ichneumons are running up and 
down the glass, wondering how they came to 
be born in prison. 

March 23, 1890. — A beautiful Choerocampa 
pampinatrix has come out of its brown, sharp- 
pointed chrysalis to-day, and makes a pretty 
picture, hovering over some blue periwinkles 
in his glass box. But although their little 
cup-throats have been filled with sweetened 
water, he does not deign to uncoil his umber 



A HUNDRED TO ONE. 65 

tongue to take a sip. Just the front of the 
three -grooved wheel is to be seen. No 
doubt if he were flying " in fresh fields 
and pastures gay" he would soon find a 
use for it, but he is far too early for such 
a feast and would soon die if given his 
liberty. So he must use the periwinkle cup 
or starve. 

Close beside him, on the same box of earth, 
is his exact mate, who travelled with him over 
the mountains of Western Pennsylvania last 
August, and who, doubtless, will not be far 
behind him in the spring opening. They 
were taken from an evergreen honeysuckle 
and sent me as caterpillars, making their 
chrysalids soon after their long journey, with- 
out a hint of a cocoon, although the Chcero- 
campa usually makes a very thin veil-like 
covering for the chrysalis. 

As described, at the time they were received 
(August 15, 1889), they answered the descrip- 
tion of those given in " A Hundred to One," 
and the moth is the same as there described. 
On reading a description of this caterpillar in 
Harris, and in Professor Lintner's " Fifth Re- 
port on Injurious Insects," I was at first sur- 
prised at the difference, until I remembered 
how many of the caterpillars that I have raised 



66 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

from the egg change in their appearance 
almost wholly. This one I had only seen 
when nearly ready for its change. At one 
time it is gayly marked down the back with 
spots of yellow, edged, in part, with rose-red. 
And, in his description, Professor Lintner says 
that shortly before changing to the chrysalis 
" the color changes to a dull rose throughout." 
If these assumed that color it was either a 
very " dull " rose, or I was not fortunate in 
the time of watching them. In some lights, 
with a stretch of imagination, the faintest 
hint of a pink flush may have relieved the 
yellowish-brown. However this may be, the 
moth is the same, so there is no doubt of his 
being a true Cheer ocampa pampinatrix. He 
is a handsome moth in shape and shading, 
the upper wings crossed in bands of gray and 
olive-green and edged with a red rust color ; 
the under wings being like this narrow border, 
a rust-red. He is very still most of the time, 
but when he does use his wings they quiver 
and thrill and shake so .fast that it is almost 
impossible to see them. The Chcerocampas 
which I have had have been those only from 
the honeysuckle or kindred vines, but he is 
sadly complained of as a grape-robber, eating 
the leaves to the destruction of many a vine, 



A HUNDRED TO ONE. 



6 7 



and cutting off the young stems of the clus- 
ters, which he does not want for his own use, 
until the ground is strewn under the vines 
with tiny green grapes. 




XII. 

THE UNFINISHED LIFE OF QUAKER GRAY. 

I HAD a little Quaker, dressed 
In starry robe of gray, 
With silken tufts of black and white 
Completing his array. 

His home was on a Quaker leaf, 

A poplar, silver-lined ; 
On this he lived, from this he ate, 

Beneath my glass confined. 

If frightened, he would drop the fringe 

Of tufted black and white, 
Putting his jetty, varnished head 

Completely out of sight. 

One day, when he grew very tired — 

Tired of his poplar leaf, 
Tired of his small glass prison and 

His little life, so brief, 



He climbed his crystal wall, and wove, 

In silence all the day, 
A Quaker hammock for himself, 

Of tissue silvery gray ; 



THE UNFINISHED LIFE OF QUAKER GRAY. 6g 

Wove it about his bead-like head, 

About his feet, so queer — 
Ten feet behind, like amber spools, 

So yellow and so clear, 

And six in front, like tiny horns — 

So, fastened in his net, 
Day after day, as still as death, 

Hung the poor Quaker pet. 

One morning, slowly out he crept, 

And a fresh suit he wore, 
But, to my disappointment, just 

Like what he had before. 

Perhaps a little longer waved 

His tufts of black and white, 
Perhaps a little glossier grew 

His silvery coat, so bright. 

Weeks passed ; a closer net he wove, 

Again of sober gray, 
And,- self-immured, profoundly slept 

His second life away. 

More than a year for coming wings 
I watched that tight-locked cell. 

Still closed remains his prison door, 
And now I know full well 

That this short tale of Quaker Gray 
Is all that I can tell ! 




COCOON OF CECROPIA MOTH, CONTAINING CHRYSALIS. 



XIII. 



AN EARLY CECROPIAN. 




TWO rough brown oval cocoons, spun (with 
one flat surface fastened lengthwise to a 
branch) by the large green caterpillar of the 
Attacus cecropia moth, 
were brought in, and 
lying side by side, look- 
ed as nearly alike as 
possible. From one of 
them, on March ist, as 
if to show his appreciation of spring, the fine 
Cecropian stole out which is now in the glass 
before me. The other cocoon, from eagerness 
to see what promise it gave of a mate, was care- 
fully cut at one end ; when lo, an empty chry- 
salis within ! Even with a microscope no place 
of exit was to be discerned. But his cast-off 



CHRYSALIS OF CECRO- 
PIA MOTH. 



AN EARLY CECROPIAN. 7 1 

dress was in the tomb, and it was evident he 
had, with more skill and silence than the vanish- 
ing Arab, gone off without his "tent," to enjoy 
the freedom he could not have had, had he 
been born in prison. I could easily believe the 
remark of Harris, as I searched in vain for the 
"front door," that the threads of the cocoon 
of this moth " converge again by their own 
elasticity, so as almost entirely to close the 
opening after the insect has escaped." In 
fact, I could omit the " almost." The change 
is indeed marvellous from the large light- 
green and coral-dotted caterpillar (making one 
think of a cactus stem that had concluded to 
walk off), to the gray, white, and cinnamon- 
brown moth (Fig. 42). The six legs and most 
of the body are cinnamon-red. The broad brown 
antennae, with central amber stem, come out 
from the front of the rather small cinnamon- 
colored head. Just back of this a neat white 
collar, and then the tufty brown extends back 
half an inch, and from it proceed the wings. 
Then comes a narrow band of lead color, and 
the rest of the body is ringed with black, 
white, and cinnamon-red, alternating. Along 
each side are seven round cinnamon-red spots, 
bordered with white. The finish of the hinder 
wings, in heavy lines of alternate gray and 



72 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

black, reminds one of a pheasant's wings ; but 
above this border is a line of the red, and 
above that a narrow line of white. In the 
rich furry grayish-brown of the hind wings 
are two large crescents of red and white. The 
front wings have no white in the stripe above 
the beautiful scolloped gray and reddish-white. 
They have an eye spot near the edge, of very 
dark brown or black, edged with white. It is 
a very rich moth, though not as soft in the 
harmony of its colors as the Polyphemus. 
Like that it is very gentle in its manner, keep- 
ing almost entirely quiet during the day, and 
flying but little in the evening. Its eyes are 
black. If it has any tongue it is not to be 
seen, at least while the moth is living, even 
with a microscope ; nor can the moth be 
tempted to use it. Its wonderful tenacity of 
life, when this fact is considered, is very re- 
markable. It will live about three weeks 
apparently without food, and pays slight at- 
tention to any thing ordinarily used in putting 
moths to sleep ! The moth stands most of the 
day with its wings almost together, but will 
slowly open them to their full extent if blown 
upon slightly. The caterpillar may be found 
upon the apple, cherry, or plum-tree, and 
changes, from being at first a deep yellow, 



74 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

to its last coat of handsome light green, be- 
fore going into its chrysalis (Fig. 41). It is 
said by Harris to come out in June, but, 
whether on account of the very mild winter 
and the usual difference of climate between 
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, or as a sur- 
prise to insect lovers, this Cecropia is three 
months in advance of that season. So early 
an exit will make less difference to a moth 
without a tongue. There are three fine co- 
coons of the Attacus cecropia before me, in a 
box (opened at one side so that the chrysalids 
can be watched), as I write (March 29, 1879), 
and by the transparent lines between the rings 
one of them shows it will soon release its 
impatient prisoner. The Cecropia worm spins 
its cocoon invariably alongside a twig or 
branch, as shown in the cut, when in the 
orchard or wood. But one of these three 
(the caterpillar of which was confined in a 
glass jar) made his cocoon of the usual shape 
and texture, except that the material is a 
richer, glossier brown, but it is not attached 
to a stem. It was fastened to the side of the 
glass by a heavy web of dark silk, very much 
darker than the cocoon itself, which is a hand- 
some russet-brown. The inner lining is very 
glossy, and the whole fully three inches long. 



AN EARLY CECROPIAN. ?$ 

The Cecropia moth is more difficult to raise 
" in prison " than either of the other three 
large moths (the Luna, Polyphemus, or 
Prometheus) of this genus, Attacus. 

On July 8, 1889, I received a box with 
a large number of the eggs from a friend in 
New Jersey, all of which came out (several 
having hatched by the way). One peculiarity 
I noticed at the start with them all — they do 
not eat the egg upon leaving it, but just 
enough to allow their escape. They began at 
once to eat the lilac, — and the pear, — as well 
as the currant-leaves which were given them. 
I have been more interested in this fact (of 
which I made a note at the time), from a dis- 
cussion of this point between two of our best 
entomologists, since my notice of the Ce- 
cropias, one asserting that the eggs of but- 
terflies — and I suppose moths as well — were 
always immediately eaten, and the other as 
strongly saying it was not always, the case. I 
have since watched many different caterpillars 
in this respect. The Danais eggs were eaten 
usually as soon as vacated, — every vestige 
gone in a little time, except in a few cases, 
where the Asclepias leaf was ready at the 
little open door, and probably had a fresher 
attraction for the escaped prisoner than his 



j6 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

prison walls. But in other cases, notably in 
nearly a score of eggs of the rosy Dryocampa, 
the empty shells remained, and are preserved 
in an insect-egg collection, whole enough (and 
brilliantly glossy) to show the shape and ma- 
terial perfectly. This is also the case with 
a group of most exquisite pearly eggs, found 
opened and deserted, of the still unknown 
occupants. So that unless an entomologist 
knows every insect of the millions, in their first 
and latest habits, it would probably be safer 
not to make assertions for the whole, which a 
part may rise up and prove mistaken. 

The Cecropias, in their first stage, are 
chiefly black, and spined on all the rings, each 
spine (plainly to be seen with a microscope) 
having three or four hairs, or finer spines. A 
few were yellow in this stage (as Harris gives 
them), but most of them were quite black. In 
the second stage, the black coat is exchanged 
for one of russet yellow, with black spines, 
which are each spined, in wheel-forms, with 
one russet-yellow spot, or knob, on each clus- 
ter of spines. In the third stage they are 
bright yellow, the wheeled spines jet black, 
like spokes of spun black sealing-wax, from 
hubs of clear garnet beads, one bead, or knob, 
being the centre for four, five, or six spokes. 



AN EARLY CECROPIAN. J J 

In this stage also, the second and third rings 
are very handsome. On the top of the back, 
on each of these two rings, are two crimson 
" hubs," spoked with black. The next to the 
last pair of knobs, or hubs, are a pale indigo 
blue, and this color is hinted at in several of 
the knobs toward the end, all being spined 
with the jet black spines. In the fourth 
stage the color is a very pretty light-green. 
There are large coral-red warts on the second 
ring, and smaller ones of the same color on 
the third, while on all the others to the 
eleventh there are yellow, egg-shaped promi- 
nences, beside which there are two rows of 
light-blue beads, or warts, each side all the 
length, and one row of the same color on the 
side (below these) of the first five rings, 
giving the whole caterpillar a " coat of many 
colors," sufficient to excite the envy of all 
his acquaintances. But he pays dear for that 
part of his ornamentation which consists of 
raised work, and which not unfrequently costs 
him his life when attempting a change of 
garment. 

[Note. — The easiest way to transfer the imago from 
the box where it has completed its change to the cy- 
anide jar (and which does not necessitate touching or 
alarming the moth), is by holding a narrow-folded strip 



78 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

of paper before it, upon which it will invariably step, and 
both paper and moth can be dropped quietly into the 
jar. So many moths are rubbed and defaced by rudely 
taking them between the fingers and thrusting them into 
the jar that it seems to me this simple and successful 
way is worth mentioning.] 




XIV. 



THE ROSY DRYOCAMPA. 



I HAVE been April-fooled several times 
within the last hour. Not by a person ; 
but by a moth — my beautiful rosy Dryo- 
campa. It was no April fool, but a pleasant 
surprise, its coming out this April morning 
after its long sound sleep, never once moving, 
in the black ring-notched chrysalis, since it 
went into it on the 
twenty-sixth of last 
August. A beau- 
ful little creature it 
is, especially the 
under wings, which fig. 43. dryocampa rubicunda. 
look, more than any thing else, like a stray 
rose-tinted sea-shell, such as one sometimes 
finds, nearly transparent, and almost as flat as 
a rose petal. 

I was trying to sketch it, and it would stay so 
perfectly still that I would think, " Now, I 
79 




80 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

shall have a good chance ! " and lo ! when one 
wing, or the crested head, was half drawn, 
away it would fly. Recaptured, I would begin 
again, and with the same success as before ; 
so that when I had about six half-finished 
sketches, in as many different positions, I 
remembered it was the first of April, and 
quietly put it under glass, until the picture was 
secured. 

There are but two colors, rose and yellow. 
The upper wings deeply bordered with rose 
behind, and broad epaulettes of the same color. 
The under body and feet are rose color also, 
and there is the faintest hint of rose on the 
under wings, which are studiously kept out of 
sight. All the rest is a bright yellow. The 
head is tufted, and the eyes are set so far under 
in front as not to show, unless you peep under 
the tuft, where you see them, black and round, 
close to his little front feet. There is a triangle 
of yellow, bordered with red, between them, 
and a little triangular tuft of the same color at 
the base of each of the delicate antennae. 
Much of the time when the moth is at rest 
these antennae are completely hidden, by lying 
back close along the edge of the front wings 
(like those of the Qtiinque maculatuni), so 
that you would be apt at first to think he had 



THE ROSY DRYOCAMPA. 8 1 

none. They have about thirty joints, as near 
as one can count them when in such constant 
vibration as they are pretty sure to be when in 
sight. He will keep perfectly still two hours 
at a time (if you are not attempting to take 
his picture), then fly about wildly for two or 
three minutes, and then for hours remain 
immovable, as if dead. This one prefers to 
stand showing but three feet — two on one side, 
and one on the other, — and no coaxing draws 
out the shy foot. The under wings are kept 
out of sight, except a little margin in front, 
near the head, which shows a small crescent of 
faint rOse color below the upper wings. The 
antennae of the female moth are simple, like a 
little strand of beads, while those of the male 
are spined, being larger, as are those of all 
male moths. The only other moth of this kind 
which I have seen went into the chrysalis state 
in the summer (July 5, 1877), and came out 
the last of the same month (July 27th), perfect- 
ing in that time the work which — however 
soon completed in the fall caterpillar — remains 
out of sight nearly half a year. Harris, in the 
description of the rosy Dryocampa, says, 
"The caterpillar is unknown to me," and I 
have not seen it described elsewhere. The 

two which I had (one of which I watched 
6 



82 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

through the change into the chrysalis) were 
taken from beneath the maple tree, and were 
nearly ready for their change. They do not 
spin any cocoon, nor attach themselves to the 
glass (like the caterpillar of the Danais and 
also of the Asterias, and others), but work off 
the caterpillar skin — the chrysalis first appear- 
ing of rather a bright green or yellowish color, 
and soon becoming quite black. 

The summer chrysalis would move, when 
touched (advancing on the paper with a pe- 
culiar gliding motion, by means of the toothed 
edges of the rings) ; but the winter one was 
never seen to move a hair's breadth. The cat- 
erpillar has twelve rings, is a pale pea-green, 
and striped lengthwise (which gives it a some- 
what checkered appearance) in narrow stripes 
of a little deeper shade of green. The head 
is a russet-brown color, and there are two soft 
black horns on the second ring about one third 
of an inch in length. The under side of the 
two rings before the last are a purplish-brown, 
edged all along with short, black spines. There 
are a few short, black spines on the last two 
rings, and the V-shaped tail is edged also with 
a border of them, as also is a line along each 
side of the body. There are minute black 
warts symmetrically arranged about each ring, 



THE ROSY DRYOCAMPA. 



33 



about five on each. It is curious to compare 
a butterfly or caterpillar either with another or 
with some written description, and notice the 
exactness of repetition in spot, spine, and 
marking of every sort. In writing as minute 
a description of a certain caterpillar as could 




FIG. 45. CHRYSALIS OF 

DRYOCAMPA R.UBI- 

CUNDA. 



CATERPILLAR OF DRYOCAMPA 
RUBICUNDA. 



be given from counting both spots and spines, 
I was pleased to find afterward a printed de- 
scription answering count for count. There is 
not always the same similarity in their cocoons, 
as they will accommodate themselves to cir- 



84 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

cumstances rather than give up the idea of 
building their home. The Polyphemus will 
always draw leaves together in a graceful man- 
ner about his cocoon ; but one, from whom I 
took his supply of leaves, when about to spin, 
made his cocoon without it. It is true he was 
the only one of several which I had who died 
in his cocoon ; whether from mortification that 
he was obliged to deviate from his usual plan, 
I never learned. But the chrysalids (except 
from some malformation) seem to be as ex- 
actly similar as the moths and caterpillars. 

The eggs of the rosy Dryocampa moth are 
very handsome. To my surprise I found 
(August 28, 1889) a beautiful cluster of these 
eggs (seventeen in all) on a leaf of maple ; 
some of the tiny caterpillars just emerging 
from their bead-like cells. With the micro- 
scope I could at once identify them as those of 
the rosy Dryocampa, which I had not before 
known in its earliest stage. The eggs were 
very shiny and glass-like in finish, light pea- 
green, and globular, with a plain surface. The 
little caterpillars, with dark, almost black, heads, 
and bodies pea-green, striped lengthwise, and 
the two little horns or feelers on the second 
ring from the head, showed them at once to 
be rosy Dryocampas. In coming out they 



THE ROSY DRYOCAMPA. 85 

had only eaten the roof of their glossy green 
houses, and the lower half of the little circles 
still glisten on the maple leaf where they were 
first found. The caterpillars grew well in con- 
finement, and each one of them now lies, a 
fine chrysalis, waiting for some fair day to come 
out from its dark, notched case, with rose and 
yellow wings, triumphant in the change. 




FIG. 46. DRYOCAMPA RUBICUNDA MOTH. 



XV. 



THE SATURNIA IO. 



THE handsome Indian yellow moth, Satur- 
nia lo, was one I learned backward. Find- 
ing a beautiful moth of this kind on a fence one 
evening at twilight, I secured it with delight, 




FIG. 47. SATURNIA IO (FEMALE MOTH). 



but with no knowledge of its name or from 
what sort of chrysalis or caterpillar it had 
come. After keeping it some days, I found 



THE SATURNIA 10. 87 

it one afternoon apparently dead. Touching- 
it, or moving it' along even, with a pencil, 
betrayed no sign of life, and it was carefully 
placed in a box containing several other speci- 
mens. While reading in the same room that 
evening, I was startled by an unusual sound, 
which, as I was alone, was a little annoying at 
first, but soon I perceived the noise came from 
the direction of a box of moths ! And sure 
enough, my Saturnia lo, far from being dead, 
had taken occasion to call on each particular 
moth in the collection in the most unceremo' 
nious manner, ascertaining to its entire satis- 
faction, if not to mine, that none of the others 
had been put away (not to say buried) alive. 
Some delicate wings were detached from poor 
victims unable to return this unmercifully swift 
whisking about ; and before the lo could be 
safely transferred to solitary confinement, he 
had brought confusion out of order in the 
most undesirable manner possible. So began 
my acquaintance with lo. In the latter part 
of the following August, a caterpillar was given 
me by a friend, of a kind I had not seen before, 
and soon I found two others like him. They 
were between two and three inches long, and of 
a light pea-green color. The twelve rings were 
each starred with a cluster of green spines, 



88 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

tipped with a dark purple, looking almost black. 
These were sharp and thorn-like. A line of 
purple brown ran along the lower part of each 
side, bordered on the lower edge with yellow. 
The hinder prop-feet were a dark brown ; the 
eight middle feet purplish, with a brown finish 




at the bottom. The three pairs of true feet 
were purple. The head was green like the 
body, while the mouth was purple like the feet. 
The first ring was so completely covered with 
spines as to hide his head entirely when bent 
forward, as they usually were. There were six 



THE SATURN I A 10. 89 

sets of these stars on each ring, except the last 
two (and five on each of those), and on the 
first four rings, which have on each side an 
extra cluster very low down. 

These spines are very stiff, and remind one 
of porcupine quills. The purple-brown line 
along the side, which begins at the fourth ring, 
bends down to the hinder prop-feet, leaving 
five clusters on the last ring. On each side 
of every ring is an oblong vertical breathing 
hole (spiracle), as in nearly all larvae ; for 
though these differ in number and some other 
respects in different caterpillars, yet their ar- 
rangement is uniformly symmetrical, and usu- 
ally each segment is furnished with a pair. 
Examined with a microscope, this spiracle has 
first a vertical white centre line, around which 
is an oval of brown, and this again bordered 
by an outside oval of jet black. He looked 
like a moving strip of star moss. He refused 
clover, dogwood, and elm, all of which they 
are said to like, probably because when taken 
he was about ready to become a chrysalid. 
There are in each star about thirty spines. 
Three shorter ones usually in the centre, a 
second circle about these three, and again a 
third, which are still longer. Some of the 
spines, especially in front, are not tipped with 



90 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 



purple, but end in delicate long hairs. While 
really pretty, they are a formidable-looking 
caterpillar, and the sting of the spine is said to 
be as severe as that of a nettle. So curious a 
caterpillar was not difficult to be found de- 
scribed, and I soon learned, if these went 
safely through their changes, I should have the 
Saturnia Io moths. In a very short time the 
three had spun their cocoons and retired for a 
winter's sleep. Two of them seemed to strike 
up a close friendship at once. While the third 
went off to a corner of the box and spun his 
cocoon independently, the other two worked 
closely side by side, form- 
ing a twin cocoon, joined 
together entirely on one 
side, and looking not un- 
like a double covered cra- 
dle. This being a new 
departure (as in the case 
of the Polyphemus cocoon, 
without the leaves on the 
outside), only one of the pair survived the ex- 
periment ! 

On the last day of winter (February 28, 
1878), one of the covered cradles opened, and 
a beautiful female moth came out (Fig. 50), just 
such an one as had made the bustling expedition 




FIG. 49. CHRYSALIS AND 
COCOON OF SATURNIA IO. 



THE SATURNIA 10. 9 1 

among the box of specimens in the fall. On the 
third of March the single cocoon opened, and a 
male Satumia Io appeared (Fig. 51). 1 1 is of a 
deep Indian yellow, with the four wings oblique- 
ly marked with purplish red, and a number of 
spots on each, close together, near the middle of 
the wing, which, have been thought to resemble 
the letters A H, and which, with a little help 
of the imagination, do look more like those 




K. ■■■';.* " ■ - 



FIG. 50. FEMALE IO. 

letters than any thing else. His mate is much 
darker, with less of the yellow and more of the 
brown and purple. Instead of the letters A 
H, there is a three-scalloped spot of rich, deep 
brown, edged with gray. The head is a rich 
snuff-brown, very velvety, and the handsome, 
velvety feet are of the same rich color. The 
other half of the double cocoon remained un- 
opened. 



92 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

After writing the above, it was my curious 
good-fortune to find seven of these large cat- 
erpillars on one blade of Indian corn. There 
was not another to be found in the small field, 
and how these had chanced to congregate in 
such camp-meeting array was a mystery. They 
are " processionary " caterpillars, and although 
I had read this, I should not have realized it 
but for the curious sight which having so many 
at once afforded me. After they had been put 




under a large glass, it was a new and amusing 
sight to watch them march around — one length- 
ened, mossy line of green, all touching one 
another and walking as fast as if quite alone. 
They preferred the green leaves of the corn to 
any others which they are said to like and will 
eat. One after another they made their seven 
cocoons, and lay through the winter just passed, 
side by side, a little hamlet of sleepers — houses 



THE SATURNIA 10. 93 

so still and apparently unoccupied as to have 
suggested a " Deserted Village," but whose 
occupants I knew were only waiting to surprise 
me on some coming spring morning with a 
regular Chestnut Street parade. 

And the spring opening has come. Three 
of the sleepers have left their black, moveless, 
chrysalid homes. One has lived his little life, 
and two rich brown and purple ones are in a 
box near me (March 31, 1879). One of them 
has just made a pretty picture by flying upon 
a fresh light-green blade of Indian corn (plant- 
ed in my room expressly for their pleasure), 
almost, but not quite, too frail, in its own forced 
and tender growth, to support his swinging and 
fluttering little body. The corn was not for 
them to eat, as these moths may be classed 
among the tongueless ones, nor could they get 
any good from the green blades, had they ever 
so long a tongue. But if it were June, and 
they were in the cornfield, there they would 
deposit their eggs for the future star-moss 
caterpillars — more than two dozen of which, 
rather large, and of a clear, golden yellow, are 
now in a box, with a leaf of the corn for any 
possible coming need. 

The pupa is black throughout, so that there 
is no change in it to indicate the coming of the 



94 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

moth, as is the case in so many of the brown 
or other lighter-colored pupae. The rings, how- 
ever, become a little wider apart, and the spaces 
a little clearer, perhaps, between them. The 
end of the pupa, opposite the head, when looked 
at with a microscope, is drawn in a little curi- 
ously, reminding one of the peculiarly pretty 
bud of the laurel blossom. 

Another cocoon has since opened (April 10, 
1879), and a lemon-yellow and variegated 
male Io has shaken out his beautiful wings, 
handsomer in his light spring suit than any of 
the others. 




liSIIJic 








^^^^ 






Kj|p 






: 


*$y*/)'°J^~>i 


:' - 





XVI. 

SILVER GRAY. 

STANDING on the heart of a blush rose, 
with his richly shaded, silvery wings flut- 
tering over its soft petals, my Quinquemacu- 
lata moth makes a fine picture. His wings 
are spread just enough to show five orange 
spots encircled with black, which ornament 
each side of his body and give him his name. 
But the back of his head, between the shoul- 
ders, is his chief beauty. It is a rich, soft 
gray, curiously and regularly watered with 
black and white wavy lines. Of his six legs 
the last two pair are branched with three deli- 
cate spines. The eyes are very large and 
velvety black. The antennae are not feath- 
ered, as are those of the Polyphemus moth, 
but many-jointed, tubular, and finely pointed 
at the tip. 

These antennae are about an inch in length, 
and usually lie back close to the side of the 

95 



g6 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

body, seeming to form a corded edge to the 
upper wings, the points lying just under the 
wing. You would at first say he had no 
antennae ; but watch him a little, and they 
will soon be very apparent. The tongue is 
four or five inches in length, but when coiled, 
looks like a small wheel set between two 
feathery side pieces. 

When freed from his chrysalis, his first care 
seemed to be for this long slender tongue, 
which had been so specially cared for, during 
the chrysalis state, in its curious pitcher-handle 
sheath. He unrolled and shook it again and 
again, curling and smoothing it as a child 
would a dandelion stem, and then reaching up, 
touched the top of the glass box (quite a high 
one) several times. Then he coiled it up 
quickly, and that was the last seen of his long 
tongue, except the hint of it in wheel form. 
Although tempted by fragrant flowers and 
sugared moss, he would not be induced to un- 
coil it again. A " greater green orchis," with 
its immensely long nectary of sweets, would 
no doubt have given him an opportunity to 
satisfy his hunger in a becoming manner ; but 
no such flower was at hand, and scorning 
to use so remarkable an organ upon any ordi- 
nary repast, he quietly became a martyr to his 



98 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

sense of propriety, and died from hunger in 
the midst of plenty. And what is this dainty 
creature ; or, rather, what was he? You will 
exclaim when I tell you he was the revolting- 
looking, large, green tomato worm. 

Snappish and really dangerous in that form 
— requiring to be taken with great care — the 
change in his disposition seems as great as 
that in his external appearance. Although 
he does not equal the Polyphemus in gentle- 




FIG. 53. LARVA OF THE QUINQUEMACULATA MOTH. 

ness (and I have seen no moth that does), 
still he is timid and quiet ; although I fancy 
when touched there is a trace of the original 
disposition in the short, quick flutter he gives 
in response. It has not been an easy mat- 
ter to secure this moth. It is a sphinx, and 
like all this class the caterpillar buries itself in 
the earth to go into the chrysalis form. Sev- 
eral large specimens of the tomato worm were 
caged in boxes, upon earth, and fed with to- 



SILVER GRAY. 99 

mato leaves. In due time they all disappeared 
in the earth. The same curiosity which leads 
children to take up seeds once or twice to see 
if they have sprouted, led to several attempts 
to see if these chrysalids were formed. Though 
Nature cannot be delayed, neither will she be 
hurried. 

At length, all the earth being shaken from 
them, two large well-formed chrysalids ap- 
peared. These were allowed to lie upon 




FIG. 54. CHRYSALIS OF THE QUINQUEMACULATA. 

the earth all winter. They showed signs of 
life until March, when they shrivelled a little, 
and would no longer move when touched. 
They are now "hardened cases," with no hope 
of change. 

This was too great a disappointment to 
bear without some attempt at remedy, and the 
thought was suggested of digging where last 
year's tomatoes had grown, to see if any un- 
watched ones had survived. The gardener 
soon brought two fine chrysalids to light. 



IOO AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

They were laid on boxes of earth in the empty 
glass case which the others had occupied, and 
Silver Gray broke the bands of one of these 
yesterday. The large moth made its exit at 
the usual place between the shoulders, leaving 
a mere parted line in the almost unbroken 
chrysalis. Even the long tongue-sheath was 
not broken or loosened from the breast. These 
two chrysalids were alike. The first two dif- 
fered only in the tongue-case, one having the 
pitcher-handled case, as in the engraving, 
while the other had two short, straight cases, 
side by side. 

What may we not believe possible in trans- 
formation, when we see the forbidding to- 
mato worm, after a dark underground exist- 
ence, come out into the silvery beauty of the 
Quinquemaculata f 

Shall we fear "the dark prison of a tomb," 
since the same power that opens the chrysalis 
rolls the stone from the long-sealed sepulchre ? 




FIG. 55. CERATOMIA QUADRICORNIS (HARRIS). 



XVII. 



CERATOMIA QUADRICORNIS (HARRIS). 



1HAVE dipped the bells of the lily of the 
valley in sweetened water and put them 
in the box where my fine moth, Ceratomia 
quadricornis, may have a rich treat. But, as 
usual with these long-tongued moths, he 
scorns the feast, although his mouth waters 
for it, as one can see by the way the little 
brown wheel moves between the "tongue- 
cheeks." 

For five minutes he has had his head buried 
in a lily bell, but not a muscle moves, as I 
watch him with my glass. Had he plunged it 



102 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

in himself, he no doubt would be sipping 
sweets, but as it was put over him, in a way 
he did not understand (nor resist), he simply 
scorns a forced meal. 

He is a very richly shaded moth, with, 
however, no bright colors. He is a little 
larger than the Philampelus, or "vine lover." 
He is a rich brown, light, with very dark wavy 
shadings, like watered silk, with a very little 
white. The body has five lines running 
lengthwise, of the darkest brown shade. 

The caterpillar lives upon the elm. This 
one came to me in a box from a friend in 
New Jersey, August 10, 1881. The moth 
derives its name from the large, green, rough 
caterpillar, which has four horns on its shoul- 
ders (Fig. 56). These horns are evenly and 
curiously notched. 




FIG. 56. CATERPILLAR OF CERATOMIA QUADRICORNIS. 

There are seven diagonal lines on the sides, 
and down the centre line of the back there is 
a row of notches like the teeth of a saw. 



CERA TO MI A QUADRICORNIS. 1 03 

There is a horn or spine on the end of the 
body — a continuation of the notched line of 
the back. I had found one of these on an 
elm in Pittsfield, Mass., two years before, 
which died in the transformation to the 
chrysalis. It is very difficult for these horned 
caterpillars to make the change into a chrysa- 
lis. And as I only laid the one first secured 
on the top of a box of earth he had a very poor 
chance to effect it. He was, at first, a fine 
noble-looking fellow, but in his efforts to 
change into the chrysalis he became the most 
forlorn-looking of creatures. His little amber- 
colored feet were brought together (in pairs), 
almost touching, like folded hands. You 
could only see that he breathed by their gentle 
rising and falling ; and even this would cease 
for such long intervals that one would think 
him dead. His skin shrivelled until it looked 
like the brown netted meshes of a nutmeg 
melon rind, and after a few more faint efforts 
he lay still, not to move again. 

When the fine specimen given me, August 
10th, was first received, he was evidently ready 
for his change. He was placed upon a box of 
earth, and in less than an hour (after describ- 
ing a very correct horseshoe in one voyage of 
discovery on top of the earth) he went quickly 



104 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

out of sight, and remained for months undis- 
turbed. In March he was uncovered, a fine large 
brown tongue-cased chrysalis, and watched 
as his wings grew farther apart and a little 
clearer, until, fortunately when my eye hap- 
pened to be upon him, I saw him break his 
casket, and step briskly out and walk up the 
'side of the glass box (upon the ribbon edge) 
in about three seconds of time. I say fortu- 
tunately, because those who watch chrysalids 
know how very certain they are to spring 
upon you in full-dress when your back is 
turned for a moment. Out of eleven Saturnia 
Ids which opened this spring, equally watched, 
not one was seen during the exit. It was per- 
haps an hour before his wings were entirely 
shaken out, but such perfect unfolding, with- 
out wrinkle or seam, after such long and tight 
packing, is not seen from any traveller's trunk ! 




FIG. 57. PHILAMPELUS ACHEMON. 



XVIII. 



PHILAMPELUS ACHEMON.' 



"/""■\NLY honey-dew, and sweet manna ! 

V J No more grape leaves for him ! " 

Strange words to say bending over a large un- 
gainly caterpillar, one would think, and yet I 
knew why he was hurriedly making his way 
out of sight in the box of earth on which I had 
not an hour before placed him, and why, as 
well, he had turned from the fresh leaf of grape 
I had just brought for his supper. No more 
grape leaves — done with coarse food and low 
grovelling life ; no more crawling and creeping 

* Vine-loving Achemon. 



106 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

and half-blind existence. A long, quiet rest, 
out of all sound and sight, and then a fresh, 
bright awakening to soar and sip from the 
daintiest flower chalices, in the exquisite garb 
of the gentle Philampelus achemon. This I 
knew was before him, although I had failed the 
year before in an attempt to see him through 
these changes, farther than the chrysalis, which 
I had probably prevented reaching its perfect 
state by exposing it to the sunlight before I 
had learned that it should have darkness 
rather than light until the time of its winged 
awakening. 

It was on the first day of October ('81) that 
I spied him, at the close of a game of croquet 
we had been enjoying, slowly making his way 
down a fence-post, beneath the grape-vine. 
An odd enough, and not very prepossessing- 
looking fellow (Fig. 58), in his russet-brown 




FIG. 58. CATERPILLAR OF PHILAMPELUS ACHEMON. 



dress with diagonal cream-colored side-stripes, 
six on a side (made up of a sort of chain of 
twisted oval spots), and a curious staring eye- 



PHI LA MP EL US A CHE MO AT. 



107 



spot on the top of the last segment of his body. 
More odd still, when disturbed, he drew his 
head and the next three rings of his body into 
the fourth ring, making a monk of himself 
without ceremony (Fig. 59). 




FIG. 59. CATERPILLAR WITH HEAD WITHDRAWN. 

Placed upon a box of earth, (covered with 
glass), in less then half an hour he was out of 
sight. 

Tipping the box carefully, a few days after 
his disappearance, letting the earth slide from 
him to disclose his successful change into the 
chrysalis (a large chestnut-brown case), I 
covered and put him away (Figs. 60 and 61). 




108 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

There he slept until May 14, 1882, when, 
looking at the box again as I had for some 
days been doing, his hour of triumph had 
come! I saw, 
standing above the 
open chrysalis the 
beautiful Philam- 

FIG. 60. UPPER SIDE OF CHRYSALIS. . 7 7 , . 

peliis achemon, his 
wings trembling and expanding into his now 
perfect dress. His eyes are very large, the 
antennae long, slender, and pectinated, and 
you have no need, as in the case of the Po- 
lyphemus, to search for his tongue, as its large 
coil shows like a brown wheel between the 
deep rich velvety side-pieces, or tongue-cheeks, 
which enclose it. As he stands now, on a 
bunch of cherry blossoms in his large glass 
house, with his curiously scalloped, or cut-in 
wings expanded three inches across, we can 
but wonder at the secret of the change which 
went on silently 
in the buried 
chrysalis. The 
wings are a beau- 

• r 1 1 i FIG. 6l. UNDER SIDE OF CHRYSALIS. 

tiiul ash color, 

with a faint reddish tinge ; the fore wings orna- 
mented with two very rich dark velvety-brown 
spots nearly square in shape, and the hinder 




PHILAMPELUS ACHEMON. 1 09 

wings are of a bright pink, bordered behind with 
ash color. There are also two triangular brown 
spots, of the same color as those on the fore 
wings, on the thorax. He is a very quiet moth, 
resting for hours in one position, and not at all 
vain, as he takes no pains to show his chief 
beauty, the exquisitely colored hinder wings, 
which are almost entirely covered by the front 
ones. Thus far he has not been seen to uncoil 
his tongue, though tempted by sugared water 
on moss and flowers, and, last and chiefest, by 
a leaf-cluster from his own vines, which " give 
forth so sweet a smell " that if he had any 
reminiscences of his former life, he would, one 
might imagine, be induced to prove himself 
still entitled to the name Philampelus. 




XIX. 

THE FOX-FACED MOTH. [ADONETA SPINULOIDES]. 



W-' 




FRONT VIEW. 
FIG. 62. 



SIDE VIEW. 



ONE more look at the little round, smooth 
chrysalis, not larger than a pea, which 
has been watched carefully since last August, 
and lo ! standing meekly by its open house is 
the delicately fringed, bronze-shaded moth 
(April 14, 1882) so long waited for. It is 
one of the limacodes, so difficult to bring 
through from caterpillar to imago. Once before 
(December 2, 188 1) one of this kind, a male, 
came out, but before it could be identified 
it was so broken, in removing to a new box, 
after mounting, as to be unrecognizable, so 



THE FOX-FACED MOTH. Ill 

far as determining its species was concerned. 
On the 17th of August, 1880, the first cater- 
pillars I had ever seen of this moth, except 
one, the year before, which soon died, were 
found on a small plum-tree in the garden (the 
same from which the first was taken), and 
they were found now in large numbers. 
Twenty-two were secured that day, and in a 
note-book of that date are simply described 
thus: " They have three or four diamonds on 
the back — three purple diamonds, on a yellow 
ground ; the rest of the caterpillar is green." 

Three days after, August 20th, is noted : 
" Three of the diamond caterpillars have spun 
up. The cocoons are small and hard, smooth 
and parchment-like, and each is glued to a leaf 
of plum. One is yet unchanged on the leaf. 
These were under a tumbler. The rest were 
in a glass box, which being ribbon-bound and 
not perfectly tight at the side, allowed a few to 
escape. Two were found and put back, so 
that there were fifteen or sixteen left. They 
are very handsome under a microscope. They 
are pea-green and spined down the edges at 
the sides. There are eleven pairs of spines, 
fringed with delicate black hairs. The three 
pairs in front, and the three pairs behind, 
are larger than the intermediate ones. The 



112 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

spines are scarlet, and each one branched 
with five smaller spines, which are pea-green. 
The diamonds on the back run into each other ; 
three toward the head and two toward the 
back, and, under the microscope, there is much 
work on these diamond-shaped spots. There 
are three straps across each one of the larger 
diamonds, and these are buttoned at either end 
of the strap. 

"The space between the diamonds on the 
back (which space the microscope reveals, 
although to the eye alone they appear to join) 
is yellow." 

Again under date of August 24th*: " The 
fourth of the diamond-backed caterpillars spun 
up. A small, round cocoon, smooth like the 
rest, but pea-green instead of brown." 

At length, there were more than a dozen of 
these small chrysalids, but of them all only one 
reached the imago state, and appeared as early 
as December 2d, as mentioned above. Its 
description, carefully written at the time, is 
given December 3d : 

" It is of a rich brown and light drab. Char- 
acteristics : Large black eyes, low down in 
the head ; a hairy crown-like tuft, rather square 
and flat on the top of the head, which is dark 
brown, edged with light drab ; legs slender and 



THE FOX-FACED MOTH. 113 

silvery ; thighs large and spined ; no tongue 
visible." After he was ready to mount, and so 
was quiet enough, I counted the joints of the 
antennae with a microscope and found them 
about thirty-six. The front of the head 
seemed pointed and nose-like. On each side 
of the nose, just over the eyes, are the 
antennae, amber-colored. They start from 
almost the same point. This peculiar shape 
of the head gives it a fox-like appearance, and 
having been struck with this, I was pleased 
when a friend noticed it, and remarked : " It 
would be strange if he should show fox-like 
habits." The legs are very slender, and in 
both the specimens I have had, seemed to 
come off very easily at the first joint — once 
from being caught in a drop of sugared water 
the leg was left in the sweet, and with no gain 
to the mouth, as there was no notice taken of 
food. After losing his leg (the right front 
one), he would use one of the antennae in its 
place, and turn the other back to edge his left 
wing ! 

August 22, 1 88 1, two more of these bright 
little caterpillars were found, and the next day 
one more. These were on the same plum- 
tree, and although several other plums were 
near, no trace of one has ever been found on 



114 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

any of them. These three were all that could 
be found last year, and in a day or two, two of 
these were covered with little ichneumon rice- 
cases. So that but one cocoon was made, and 
this, fortunately, survived and came out in 
April ; so much later than the other moth of 
last year, that it had almost been given up. 
The case in which the moth was enclosed, 
inside of the cocoon, came out of the cocoon, 
a clear skin, showing all the marks of the moth, 
even the antennae. There were six eggs fas- 
tened upon the leaf in two exact rows — amber 
colored. These being on the under side of 
the leaf, were put into the cyanide jar, unno- 
ticed, and thus probably had their life de- 
stroyed. Whether the egg-life will survive 
that which killed the moth, will be an interest- 
ing question. The markings of this moth are 
not so distinct as of the male one, and the 
body is somewhat larger. The colors are 
similar, although the contrasts in shading are 
less marked. 




XX. 



LIFE IN A BASKET. 



IN a recent number of a magazine a corre- 
spondent asks, " Can any one name a 
caterpillar which lives on evergreen trees ? It 
carries its cocoon on its back. The cocoons 
have evergreen needles hanging down the 
sides." 

This curious caterpillar, usually called Bas- 
ket-worm, from its basket-like case, belongs to 
the Psychadae family. On the 5th of August, 
1879, I received some of these curious baskets, 
from a friend in New Jersey. The baskets 
were bottle-shaped, rough, and covered length- 
wise, with bits of arbor-vitse. One was drawn 
up close at the neck like a sack — (the Germans 
call them sack-trager or sack-bearers) and I 
supposed, as it was perfectly still, that it was 
dead, or had changed to a chrysalis. Another 
at once put out its head, and the three follow- 
ing rings of its body, and began to walk up 



Il6 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

the glass box (ten or twelve inches high), 
drawing his basket along with him, and so 
walked to the top, and across one end clinging 
by the ribbon binding. The same day he 
began to fasten a thread about the stem of a 
sycamore leaf which I had placed in the box 
(as, when found, these baskets were suspended 
by a thread several feet long, from a sycamore 
branch near an arbor-vitae). He worked at 
this thread from five in the afternoon until ten 
in the evening, making it as strong as possible, 
as if to challenge a second disturbance. Then 
he drew up the neck anH kept quiet. Now 
and then, the basket would shake, and swell 
out to its fullest capacity. About nine in the 
evening, I noticed the one which I had sup- 
posed dead moving. With sharp scissors I care- 
fully cut off the very edge of the closed neck. 
In about five minutes I saw him draw it gently 
together. On the 7th, one of them pushed 
his cast-off skin through the case, when I con- 
cluded that he was changed to a chrysalis. 
But no, a little later the same day, he put out 
a fresh head and shoulders from the bottom 
of his sack, shook off the skin which had not 
been quite freed before, and peered about him ! 
Then he retired, drew up the opening, as a 
lady would her work-bag, and, as a caterpillar 



LIFE IN A BASKET. WJ 

I saw him no more. Fresh hemlock, pine, and 
arbor-vitae laid close to his basket seemed no 
temptation to him to undraw those little 
strings, and by closest watching I could not 
see that he ate again after the change. The 
basket would occasionally whirl violently, and 
then remain perfectly still. Five segments 
were the most it ever showed. The first 
three rings back of the head are shelly in 
appearance. In color it is a grayish-olive, 
mottled with white, something like a tortoise 
shell. The mouth and feet are an amber 
brown. On Angust 13th, I looked within one 
basket and found a very dark chrysalis. It 
was quick in its motions, as was the caterpillar 
and also the moth. On September 14th, two 
of the chrysalides pushed out from the basket 
and in less than half a minute with a little 
bustling whirr the moths were out. They 
were black with clear wings, which were 
shorter than their long tapering bodies, giving 
them a very curious appearance. The female 
is wingless, as the Orgyia ; white with an 
amber-colored head, and would scarcely be 
recognized as a moth. The antennae of the 
male are doubly feathered. Their basket 
home is soft-lined and the neck both without 
and within is free from sticks and soft as plush 



Il8 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

to the touch. The female moth never leaves 
her home. This evergreen Basket-worm is 
doubtless the species Oiketicus, of Harris (p. 
415) and which he says "is common in the 
vicinity of Philadelphia on the arbor-vitse, 
larch, and hemlock." I found them this year 
on evergreens at Ocean Grove. 




XXI. 



A BLACKBERRY LOOPER. 



ON July 17, 1884, I secured from a black- 
berry a very curious "looper" cater- 
pillar. He was of a mulberry-brown color 
mottled and ringed, and his body shagreened. 
He had two pair of hind prop feet, and three 
pair of true feet in front. His head looked 
like a double hoof of a cow's foot. If he had 
been a gymnast or acrobat his fortune would 
have been assured. Any man who could 
stand with his feet against a tree, in a perfectly 
rigid horizontal position, an hour at a time, 
without moving, might well attract a crowd at 
a dollar an hour. 

This gymnast exhibited free, and astonished 
you by the wonderful variety of his exploits, 
and stoical immovability from his position 
when taken. Now he was a stem to the black- 
berry. Again a handle to it. Then a syphon ; 
again an " eye " waiting for the corresponding 



120 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

hook. Then a loop-and-link, as if he had 
begun to make a chain, and gave out on the 
second link. Then he made a stiff bridge 
from one berry to another. 

\ 




FIG. 63. DIFFERENT POSITIONS OF THE BLACKBERRY LOOPER. 

Each of his true feet is armed with an amber 
claw. The mouth also is amber-colored and 
yellow. It is difficult to see it, even with the 
microscope, as it appears as if drawn into its 
body, or neck, when not in use. 



A BLACKBERRY LOO PER. 12 1 

His little group of eyes, or ocelli, are plain 
to be seen, and he would peer forward in re- 
sponse to my watching, as much as to say : 

" I have as much of an inquiring mind as 
you ! " 

On July 26th the looper changed to a buff- 
colored chrysalis, very pointed at the end and 
having a dark-brown central line (interrupted) 
down the back. 

On August 10th the chrysalis opened, and 
out came a most delicate pea-green moth, with 
white wavy bands on fore and hind wings, 
both of which were fringed. The body is a 
creamy, silvery white, the head and feet light 
amber. The legs are spined, one spine on 
each. The plumed, amber-colored antennae 
are broad at the base and taper to a point. 
The eyes are large and of a sage-green color, 
with a dark circular ring, which appears like a 
pupil, near the centre, and which under a mi- 
croscope gives you the feeling of being looked 
on with a responsive gaze. 

The moth has been identified for me by 
Professor Lintner, as the Nemoria chloroleu- 
caria (Guenee), and is said to be distributed 
over the United States from Canada to Texas, 
and is no doubt far better known in its perfect 
state than as a blackberry-loving caterpillar. 




XXII. 

THE DRYOCAMPA IMPERIALIS. 

HEARING a slight noise in my room one 
evening, I turned to look at the chest- 
nut brown chrysalis I had long been watching, 
of the beautiful moth Dryocampa imperialis. 
Having lost the caterpillar of this moth the year 
before in making its change, I was very glad 
to see this fine chrysalis (which had afterward 
been sent me by a friend) at last show signs 
of opening. This was the first of May, 1880. 
As I looked a slight parting appeared exactly 
in the centre of the front of the head, giving 
a glimpse of the yellow color of the moth. 
The quickness of the parting and closing of 
this narrow thread-line, showing the rich 
golden yellow for an instant, was like the 
play of miniature " heat lightning." Watch- 
ing it until after midnight, the chrysalis at last 
became perfectly motionless, and I left it, 
thinking it would not move again. To my 



124 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

surprise, the next morning there was the same 
flashing of the little yellow line, which con- 
tinued without any gain throughout that day, 
and half of the day following. Thinking it 
would not be able to break the thick shell, 
with a fine needle I carefully broke off some 
tiny bits from the side of the crack, and soon, 
with a mighty stir and bustle, the moth walked 
out. But alas, never to shake out the rich 
purple and yellow wings ! Whether he would 
have finally succeeded in freeing himself from 
the chrysalis alone, or not, it is certain my 
assistance did him no service, and the beauty 
that " might have been," and which was par- 
tially revealed by the imperfect moth, only 
added to my second disappointment. The 
next summer I received a fine specimen of the 
caterpillar, from a friend who had found it on 
its favorite button-wood. I had scarcely time, 
after placing it upon a box of earth, to note 
carefully its sage-green color, reddish-tinged 
back, orange head and feet, white, green-bor- 
dered spiracles, and the six yellow, black- 
spined knobs on each of the wings except 
the first, before it worked itself rapidly out of 
sight, to make its change in the ground. 

When the box was being opened the dinner- 
bell proved, for once, an unwelcome sound, 



THE DRYOCAMPA IM PERI A LIS. 1 25 

but thinking (and wisely as the event proved) 
that now was the best time to secure him, I 
seized my pencil and made the following 
sketch before satisfying my appetite. 

On my return from the dinner-table the 
surface of earth in my box was marked by a 
half-circular ridge, about the width of the 
caterpillar's body ; it had gone from sight 
to make its wonderful change. This it did 
successfully, and having slept itself into its 
spring suit (in which matter caterpillars have 
greatly the advantage of us), it came out of 
its prison in May, in its exquisite robe of yel- 
low and purple, and with as much ease and 
celerity as if its ring-notched case was not to 
be thought of as an obstruction, when it was 
ready to give me its full-dress surprise. 




FIG. 65. CATERPILLAR OF DRYOCAMPA IMPERIALIS. 

This large caterpillar feeds upon the Syca- 
more, and is found during August and Sep- 
tember. Some of them are over three inches 
in length. They are of a peculiar shade of 



126 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

green, in some cases with a faint reddish 
flush, and occasionally a more rusty olive- 
brown. The feet are orange-colored, the 
spiracles double-bordered with white and 
green. On the second and third rings are 
two knob-like horns curved backwards, of a 
bright yellow — the three pieces, shaped like a 
triangle at the end of the body are also yel- 
low-edged, sprinkled with small dots of orange- 
colored knobs, and on each of the rings are 
six thorned yellow knobs. There are a few 
thin hairs scattered over the body, but so 
sparsely as to be scarcely noticeable. 

He is a gentle caterpillar, like the Polyphe- 
mus, but much more difficult to carry through 
its changes successfully. One which was 
given me by a friend, the past summer (Au- 
gust, 1889), failed to complete his change into 
the chrysalis, although every care was taken 
that he might do so. He had been brought a 
long distance, and possibly received some in- 
jury by the way. This caterpillar is rare, cer- 
tainly in Pennsylvania — and about as difficult 
to secure in an afternoon search, as is that of 
the Royal Walnut. I have as yet never been 
so fortunate as to find one, although sundry 
protracted peerings into the leafy boughs of 
the Sycamore on many a ramble may have 



THE DRYOCAMPA IMPERTALIS. \2J 

suggested to an on-looker the thought that 
he had encountered some one not very re- 
motely connected with Zaccheus. Probably 
the easiest way to obtain them will be found 
through the egg, by securing the moth itself. 
In the capture of a moth one should not lose 
this possibility of a bonanza by "jarring" them 
at once, in order to secure a "perfect speci- 
men." This thought came to me just in time 
to save my putting a fine female Luna moth 
into the cyanide jar as soon as caught, when, 
had I done so, I should never have been able 
to record my " Barrel Full of Lunas." 




XXIII. 

A BARREL FULL OF LUNAS. 

ON June 22, 1883, a beautiful Luna moth 
was given me by a friend. It was the 
first living moth of this kind I had had, never 
having been so fortunate as to secure the 
caterpillar or its cocoon. Just as I was about 
putting it in the cyanide jar, the thought struck 
me that I might possibly secure eggs and 
raise moths of this beautiful species. Scarcely 
had I decided to keep it, before I noticed a 
cluster of eggs on the inside cover of the box 
in which it was brought to me. Here was 
a treasure indeed. And, in three days after, 
there were over thirty eggs in the box. They 
were dark brown, a little smaller than those 
of the Polyphemus, and biscuit-shaped like 
them, each having also a slight central de- 
pression. Most of them were lying in the 
form of a chain, in an almost regular con- 
nected line. On the second of July many of 
128 



130 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

the eggs hatched, the young caterpillars being 
a light pea-green, a little less than an inch 
long. The spines were in clusters, like those 
of the Io Saturnia, those on the back having 
a purplish tinge. They began to eat fresh 
walnut leaves at once. In a day or two, little 
beaded knobs began to show, running length- 
wise in rows. Some, which had moulted, had 
rich purple tufts on them, — four on the two 
front rings (two on each) and one on the last 
ring. The true feet were also purple, or pur- 
plish brown. The Luna caterpillars are easily 
kept. When the glass cover is removed they 
do not rush to get away, but eat on con- 
tentedly. They betray no snappishness like 
the tomato-worm. When the next change was 
made, the rows of crimson or garnet spots 
were much larger. Each crimson spot has a 
light-yellow border and a little tuft of hair from 
its centre. The true feet are dark-crimson — 
the false ones puffy and pea-green, like the 
body, and bordered at the clasping-edge with 
crimson. The head is green, marked on the 
front with crimson, and the mouth is crimson- 
tipped. When about to moult, the caterpillar 
fastened itself to the side of the glass by a 
netting of fine silken threads, head downward 
and bent forward, the true feet drawn to- 



A BARREL FULL OF LUNAS. 131 

gether, exactly evenly, in pairs, giving it a 
meek look, as if it were in the act of peti- 
tioning for pity. It changed in about two 
days. It was curious to watch these caterpil- 
lars eat, holding a leaf firmly with the three 
pairs of true feet, and supporting itself by the 
four pairs of prop feet, with their dull purple 
or crimson sucker-like claspers clinging to the 
stem. The leaf melts away before their rapid 
cutting in a marvellous manner. The amber- 
like spinnerets stand outside, and the jaws 
work together sideways, the edge of the leaf 
being guided by passing between two feelers 
which hold it steadily in position as it disap- 
pears beneath. When the worm was* older, 
the crimson buttons were shaded on the top to 
light pink. The eight spiracles or breathing- 
holes at the sides are shaded crimson (a puffed 
line of yellow-green bordering them), running 
lengthwise, and cut into lengths by each ring. 
In the centre of each puff is a crimson dot. 
When fully grown, the head is sea-green, as 
also the V-shaped spot on the tail, which is 
bordered with yellow, and ends with a brown 
clasper foot, yellow-edged. The true feet are 
black. The mouth is very elaborate. With a 
microscope and a good stock of patience, the 
exact number of these spots of crimson, which 



132 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

so adorn the Luna caterpillar, were counted. 
On the first ring, there are six ; on the second, 
eight ; on the third, eight ; on the fourth, fifth, 
sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth rings, 
six each ; five on the eleventh, and four on 
the last ring, making seventy-five in all. They 
are larger than the same beautifully-colored 
points on the Polyphemus caterpillar. 

On the 2 1 st of July, just as they were al- 
most ready to spin up, I was ready to leave 
on a vacation of at least a fortnight. Two or 
three on that day had begun to make cocoons, 
but several, a good deal smaller, must eat 
some days longer. No one was to remain in 
the house, and what was to be done ? To lose 
twenty or thirty Luna moths was not to be 
thought of. Had they been canaries, a friend 
could have been asked to take them in charge. 
But even the superior beauty of the crimson- 
bedecked caterpillar might not bring it into 
sufficient favor to secure the granting of such 
a request. The problem was happily solved. 
Ten of them were taken, in a wire box, on the 
journey, and as walnut trees are not abundant 
in the part of Massachusetts whither my way 
tended, an extempore silo was made by press- 
ing very closely a quantity of fresh leaves in a 
tight tin box. This lasted the ten travellers, 



A BARREL FULL OF LUNAS. 1 33 

and they each made a perfect cocoon against 
the sides of the box. But for those left 
behind ? A clean barrel was secured. This 
was papered inside and out with newspapers. 
Then a large glass jar was filled with water, 
and long sprays, freshly cut, of walnut were 
placed in the jar, and this put in the barrel. 
Then the caterpillars were at home, and by 
covering the top of the barrel with a rather 
fine wire sieve, they had plenty of air, and were 
kept at home. 

In about three weeks the well-formed 
cocoons in the travelling wire box began to 
open, much to my surprise, as I had supposed 
they were to remain until spring. Reaching 
home soon after, it was no small pleasure to 
find not only the cocoons but several moths 
already out. The contents of the barrel were 
examined with no little interest, as well as a 
glass shade which covered some which had 
been placed under that with a bottle of water 
filled with leaves. The moths in a few in- 
stances had broken their wings, but many were 
still perfect. They were perhaps a little 
smaller, but not less handsome, for their 
rather cramping experience. Very few had 
died, and there were still some leaves left not 
altogether shrivelled. 



134 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

The Luna moth is of exquisite form, and 
delicate colors. It is a light pea-green, with 
edges bordered with yellow, and a brown edge 
to each fore wing. It is tailed, and has two 
handsome transparent centred eye-spots, of 
white, black, yellow, and a faint tint of red. 
Those of the hinder wings are round, and 
those on the fore wings are like an inverted 
comma. The body is white and covered with 
a soft, fine wool, the antennse yellow and 
plumed, and the legs a purple brown. The 
colors in the eye-spots are so blended as 
scarcely to be separately distinguished with- 
out a glass, the whole appearing like shades of 
brownish pink. 

The cocoon is made much as that of the 
Polyphemus, but is not attached so firmly to 
the stem or branch. The experiment of 
raising them is simple, and of special interest 
whether done at home or abroad. 




Fig. 67. cocoon of attacus luna moth. 



XXIV. 

THE FEBRUARY BUTTERFLY. [PAPILIO 
CRESPHONTES]. 

A LITTLE fluttering noise as I passed, last 
February, a shelf where chrysalids are 
kept under glass, revealed a spring, or, rather, 
winter' " opening." The first butterfly to appear 
from among the many housed sleepers was 
from a chrysalis long and carefully watched, 
and which came out February 21, 1884. It 
was the Cresphontes butterfly, and should be 
a large and handsome one, but, alas ! from 
some unknown reason, he appeared with sadly 
crumpled hinder wings. 

If one has an unusually long chase for a 
butterfly he has never had before, and breaks 
his wings in taking him, it is disappointment 
enough ; but to wait, without even the excite- 
ment of a chase, from November 15th to 
February 21st following, and then have an 
imperfect one, seems almost too bad. How- 



136 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

ever, here he is, and wide awake, and, so far 
as perfect, handsome. And " life " shall be 
made for him as nearly " worth living " as pos- 
sible. In fact, he looks as if he thought it 
were, now, as he uncoils his long, black, three- 
grooved tongue, and sucks the sweetened 
water from the beautiful cups of creeping 
evergreen ( pyxidanthera barbulata), which 
seemed to come from the South to-day on 
purpose to give this Southern butterfly a wel- 
come. At any rate, not more than half an 
hour after he left his cell, the postman left the 
box of " moss " which came from Wilmington, 
N. C, and its beauty and sweetness must atone 
for his poor, folded-up wings. He sips eagerly, 
and raises his front wings and sways his long, 
over thirty-jointed or ringed antennae to ex- 
press his satisfaction. The Cresphontes is, 
when of full size, with wings spread, from four 
to five inches across. He resembles the Tur- 
nus butterfly in color and form, but the mark- 
ings are different. I have seen but two — the 
handsomer of these in the Lenox Academy 
Museum, last summer, and one which flew into 
a friend's house, on College Hill, Easton, Pa. 
These caterpillars, for I had three of them 
last fall, are very curious, and entirely different 
in appearance, in that form of their life, from 




........ • : :- 





I38 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

the Turnus. They were found on a prickly- 
ash tree in the grounds near where the butter- 
fly above named was caught. They ate the 
leaves of the prickly-ash, but did not seem 
very fond of it. In reading what I could find 
of the Cresphontes, I learned that in Florida 
it lives upon the foliage of the orange tree, 
which is, I then noticed, classed in the same 
family with the prickly-ash. (See Gray's 
"School and Field Book of Botany," p. 81 
Rue Family.) 

So, thinking they might prefer orange to 
prickly-ash, I obtained sprays of leaves from 
an orange tree in a friend's conservatory, but 
they turned from it with contempt, as much as 
to say, " I know in what locality I am, and if 
I can't have my native air, I will not accept 
my native leaf." And here I must mention a 
fact noticed several times with much interest. 
It may not always hold, but has, I believe, in 
each case that I have watched. The caterpil- 
lar that is said to like several kinds of leaves, 
will prefer the kind on which it first found 
itself and began to feed upon. The Saturnia 
lo, found upon the corn blade, refused the 
dogwood leaf, which it is said to like ; and a 
Polyphemus, found on an oak, in Massachu- 
setts, turned away from the maple every time, 






THE FEBRUARY BUTTERFLY. I 39 

although those found on the maple ate that 
greedily. No doubt, rather than starve, they 
would take some of the other kinds which 
they are said to eat, although I think the 
Cresphontes would have starved sooner than 
touch the orange leaves. The description of 
the caterpillar I quote from my butterfly jour- 
nal, written with the living specimens before 
me. 

" Oct. 15, 1883. — The shape of the Cres- 
phontes caterpillar is very curious, and the 
colors rich and velvety. It is hooded, the 
hood covering much of the time its small, 
olive-green head. The hood is ornamented 
with round rings (of white or russet), four 
round rings on the front edge and ten on the 
lower edge. One of the three (smaller than 
the others) has a moist, slimy look, and the 
rings look more like little clear bubbles than 
well-defined circles. There are six lavender- 
colored, irregularly-regular spots on the back, 
just above the white and bulging end. The 
sides are grayish-green. With a microscope, 
the rings show beautifully, and one wonders 
at the amount of exact work in so small a 
space. The olive-green head has a white line, 
which runs straight down the centre a little 
way, and parts in a delta. It has a pair of 



140 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

crimson horns, which do not show except when 
disturbed. The true feet are a clear, light 
olive-green, — the false feet grayish-green, 
fringed with white hairs, marked and mot- 
tled with small crescents. 

" Oct. 1 6th. — One of the Cresphontes spun 
a few threads, and attached himself to the side 
of the glass box to change his coat. His head 
is small and black, and is meekly bent against 
the glass, not in sight, looking from above. 

"Oct. 17th. — The Cresphontes keeps per- 
fectly still against the glass. Watching him 
carefully with a microscope, I cannot see the 
least movement, more than if he were dead. 

" Oct. 19th. — The Cresphontes still fixed 
against the glass. With the microscope I saw 
a most minute insect (not half so large as a 
period on this page), on his head, which an- 
noyed him. Brushing it off with a feather, he 
threw out his crimson horns, and revealed well 
where they protruded. From a horizontal 
slit on the forehead (an almost imperceptible 
line), both issued from one opening, being 
joined at the base, in one short, crimson stem, 
which is close to the angular top of the head. 
I had doubted whether he could use these, 
having been so long suspended for his change ; 
but he did, readily." 



THE FEB J? UARY B UTTERFL Y. 1 4 1 

At length the Cresphontes died, after leav- 
ing the glass, and soon both the others died. 
A friend then gave me a perfect chrysalis, 
formed at the same time, and which yielded 
the crumpled butterfly. The wings are jet- 
black above, with an irregular band of almost 
golden-yellow spots on the upper pair. The 
hind wings are bordered with yellow some dis- 
tance from the scalloped and tailed edges. 




FIG. 69. CHRYSALIS OF CRESPHONTES CATERPILLAR. 

The chrysalis is much like that of the Turnus 
in shape, and is suspended, like that, by a 
silken thread around the body. 

Having sent the above sketch of my Cres- 
phontes to a paper, it was noticed by a lady in 
Florida where this caterpillar is a well-known 
devourer of the orange foliage, and where 
there are often four broods during the year. 



142 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

She very kindly sent me a box of the butter- 
flies, so large and beautiful that I was well 
repaid for the disappointment my poor de- 
formed specimen had given me. The com- 
mon name in Florida for this caterpillar is 
" the orange dog," from a fancied resemblance 
of its most curious head to that animal. When 
in its native home the caterpillar is much 




THE CRESPHONTES CATERPILLAR. 



larger than the specimens I had obtained from 
the prickly-ash, in Pennsylvania, where it was 
evidently a new comer, and not to be found at 
its best. In Florida it is found nearly three 
inches in length. The gray and brown cater- 
pillar, after feeding for a month, changes to 
the chrysalis, and after a sleep of from one to 



THE FEBRUARY BUTTERFLY. 1 43 

two weeks appears in the beautiful bright- 
winged Cresphontes butterfly. Its dull colors 
are said to resemble the bark of the orange tree 
so exactly as to make it difficult to be found, 
except upon close examination, a good exam- 
ple of the safety afforded to many insects by 
this conformity of color to their exposed places 
of living, while in a helpless state. When 
winged they can afford to triumph in the safety 
of flight, fearless of colors of a brilliant hue. 

Since writing the above I have seen, by a 
report of an Ohio entomologist, the "prickly- 
ash " given as the " food plant of the Cres- 
phontes " in that State. — [March, 1890.] 




XXV. 

A THOUSAND TO ONE. 

TO every caterpillar its own secret. It can 
keep it well, but not forever, — truth 
will out at last. I can almost imagine one of 
them laughing at your surprise, as, after day 
by day you have carefully taken long walks to 
provide its special food, and watched it spin 
its patiently-wrought silken house, you look 
for the imago of the moth or butterfly you 
have " studied up," to appear, and, lo ! instead, 
a company of buzzing intruders — five, ten, 
twenty, a hundred ichneumon-flies ( Copido- 
soma truncatellum ) . No little suspicious-look- 
ing rice grains, even, carried around on its 
back (such as some caterpillars bear, to hint 
of disappointment beforehand), were to be 
seen on the back of the pale-green caterpillar 
secured from a stalk of wild-lettuce on the 
24th of October. It was a fine-looking speci- 
men of Plusia brassiccs ; and, as it was so late 



A THOUSAND TO ONE. 1 45 

in the season getting ready for its change, 
special care had to be taken to select from 
among the already dying leaves of lettuce 
enough unwithered ones to satisfy it at its 
daily meals. However, as this was but for 
four days after its capture, it was done ; and 
then it mounted to the top of its glass prison, 
curled itself into the shape of a letter S, and 
began to spin threads of silvery-white silk 
back and forth around it, completing the cov- 
ering while it was yet thin enough to disclose 
its zig-zag outline beneath the web. It was 
delicate pea-green in color, having two pale 
straw-colored stripes running down each side 
of a line of pea-green in the middle of the 
back, while on each side of this was a line of 
still brighter yellow, and each of the rings 
was so constricted as to occasion a corded ap- 
pearance. The head was pea-green, like the 
body, with a small russet spot on each side. 
There were but two pairs of "false feet" (be- 
side the prop-feet at the end) ; so, of course, 
it was rather an unusually strange "looper." 
Under a microscope the stripes appeared 
wavy, like watered silk ; and irregularly scat- 
tered over its body were tiny white dots, many 
of them bearing a short bristly hair, not to be 
seen except with the microscope. It was 



146 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

about an inch and a half long, tapering to- 
ward the head ; and this, with the curious 
shapes it assumed when walking or feeding, 
made it an interesting object to study. Some- 
times it would lie straight along the stem, 
but, if disturbed, would quickly loop itself, 
and stay in its bent posture until reassured. 




?V^A^ 



A* 

FIG. 71. THE CABBAGE PLUSIA, PLUSIA BRASSICVE : a, THE LARVA ; 
b, THE PUPA WITHIN THE COCOON J C, THE MALE MOTH. 

.We waited until November 18th for the 
change, when we should see, instead of a 
striped, halting, looper caterpillar, coiled up 
in his silvery hammock, a beautiful tufted 
moth. A curious change came, indeed, but 
far more so than we had anticipated. At the 
" opening" that November morning, no gray- 



A THOUSAND TO ONE. 1 47 

yellow-and-silver-winged creature appeared, as 
we surely had a right to expect, but instead, 
under the glass, fully one thousand brilliant 
tiny ichneumon flies. With black heads and 
iridescent wings (a shade of turquoise blue 
prevailing), this busy little cloud of intruders 
darkened and brightened the glass prison. In 
the first surprise of the moment the glass was 
lifted a very little, when dozens escaped around 
the edge. These were instantly brushed into 
a place of safety, and the rest secured by re- 
placing the glass. The caterpillar's secret was 
out, and the task he had left for me was — 
counting. For who that has not seen it, is 
going to believe that from one caterpillar 
(after he has lived out his first stage of life, 
and built his resting-place for the next two) 
there should spring, as I have asserted, a 
thousand other lives ? So, after several days, 
when all the busy, darting gleaming rainbow 
specks were forever still, I took off the glass, 
put them on a white paper, and with the point 
of my penknife moved them off in groups of 
tens and hundreds, and, besides all that had 
at first escaped, there were by actual count 
eight hundred and thirty-two. 

In looking up all I could find about this 
Plusia brassier moth (for I had seen only the 



I48 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

figure of it), I was interested especially in one 
fact given in a number of the American Ento- 
mologist (1880), viz., that this caterpillar is a 
veritable cannibal, and is quite ready, if its 
legitimate meal of lettuce, cabbage, or turnip 
be not at hand, to make a dinner off a neigh- 
boring caterpillar of a different family, and 
even to threaten the same unkindly office to 
one of its own. If the little ichneumon-fly 
has happened to note this propensity, it has 
surely had ample satisfaction in the way of 
revenge. 

The caterpillar of the Plusia is a great rob- 
ber when found in abundance, as in many 
places, eating cabbage, lettuce, tomato, turnip, 
and especially celery. It has been a great an- 
noyance in Washington city. So in Eastern 
Pennsylvania we may congratulate ourselves 
if they are so scarce as to prove, in a single 
case, a treasure to the entomologist 




XXVI. 



THE COMPLAINT OF THE CHRYSALIS. 



T 



HEY are in such a terrible hurry 
To see what I 'm going to be ! 

I 've heard them all talking it over 
But I fear that they never will see. 



They took me from out my dark chamber, 1 
Where the light strikes me now all the day ; 

And if I don't move then they push me, 
To see if I 've died by the way ! 

As soon as my wings get some color 

And begin just a little to show, 
Beneath my poor helpless brown cover 

What is hidden they 're crazy to know ! 

Dame Nature, my kindest of mothers, 
I hope she will see me safe through, 

But I tell you she will not be hurried, 
Whatever impatience may do ! 



1 The cocoon is often opened without harm to its enclosed chrysalis, 
that the changes of the latter may be noticed as it approaches the 
imago. 

149 



150 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

If you only would leave me in darkness, 

In quiet and silence to rest, 
I 'd burst on you some pleasant morning 

In perfection of beauty full dressed. 

But I think that last touch on my shoulder 

Has injured a delicate wing, 
And I tremble to think of your waiting 

To welcome a poor blighted thing. 

I should like just the chance once to show you 

How lovely a moth can appear 
Who has slept undisturbed in his casket 

His little two-thirds of a year. 





XXVII. 



THE TUSSOCK MOTH. 




I HAVE been trying to-day to feed a moth, 
or to find whether he has a tongue. Hear- 
ing a slight rustling noise coming from a shelf 
where the sleep- 
^Sftft? 1 ]';/ " > ers m several 
tufted felt-like 
cocoons had 

FIG. 72. HICKORY TUSSOCK CATERPILLAR, been taking 

their long winter naps, I looked to see if it 
were possible that any of them had been 
cheated by the unusually mild weather into the 
belief that Spring 
had come. Sure < 
enough under two 
different glasses 
fluttered, this Jan- 
uary day (Jan. 11, FIG - 73 
1880), two buff-and- white spotted Tussock 
moths, wide awake and ready for flowers, 




HICKORY TUSSOCK MOTH. 



152 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

while snow covered the bare branches of the 
hickory trees, where their first life was spent. 
Looking at the date on the paper with the 
label, I find that the larger of the two moths, 
(which are alike), was found, a full grown 
caterpillar, in the previous autumn, September 
13, 1879. Turning to this date in my Butter- 
fly Diary, I find he was a yellowish-olive- 
green caterpillar, with yellow brush-like tufts 
on his back, a pencil of white hairs on each 
side of the first ring, a pencil of dark hairs on 
each side of the second ring, and two black 
pencils from the last ring. All the feet, 
"true" and "false," were of a clear amber 
hue. The head was jetty-black, with small 
white spots at the mouth. This caterpillar 
draws down the white pencils of the first ring 
so as to veil the whole head, which makes the 
two dark or black pencils of the second ring 
stand out like horns. The first ring has a few 
small oblong yellow spots upon it. When 
disturbed it instantly rolls into a round button- 
like coil, remaining for some time perfectly 
still. When all danger seems past, it as sud- 
denly starts from its pretended sleep, and 
walks rapidly as far as its prison will allow. 

The caterpillar of the second moth was 
found on September 16th, three days later 



THE TUSSOCK MOTH. 1 53 

than the first. He was a pale lemon-yellow 
color, with an amber-colored head. Although 
I see no difference, upon the most careful 
examination, the caterpillars were thus slightly 
different in color. The four pencils in front, 
of the second caterpillar, were of a deep 
orange color. There were back of these two 
pairs of shorter white pencils, and the two 
from the last ring were also white. The tufts 
(like small square cushions) on the back, spring 
each from a black-dotted centre. The whole 
caterpillar has a soft and very neat appear- 
ance. The feet of this one were white instead 
of amber color. I have since raised many of 
these caterpillars and find that they vary 
in color, some being mouse-colored, some 
yellow, others gray, and others olive-green, 
and often those of one of these colors, on 
changing his coat will be found to go from 
gray to lemon-yellow, or from olive-green 
to drab, and yet the imagos or moths will all 
be of the same color, which is the exact shade 
of the hickory-nut meat, (a yellowish-brown), 
sprinkled with white dots. It is a quiet, gentle 
caterpillar after it once yields to its imprison- 
ment, as a fixed fact. Until then it is un- 
ceasing in its efforts to find its freedom. 

The cocoons of the Tussock moth caterpil- 



154 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

lars are made entirely from their own hairs. 
They are oval, as shown in the cut, and take, 
of course, the color of the caterpillar in its last 
stage. Of the eight or ten now waiting in 
their chrysalis state (December, 1889), some 
are gray, some brown, and some of a delicate 
purplish hue, but all will yield the hickory-nut- 
meat moth. Some of them are suspended 
from the top of the glass, while others lie on 
the paper at the bottom of the box. They 
differ in size, the largest being an inch in 
length. The opening at the end of the cocoon 
where the moth makes its escape is so small as 
not to be noticed at the first glance. I said I 
had been trying to find whether this moth had 
a tongue. If he had it was 
not to be tempted from its 
covert by sweets, to which, 
even when dropped upon 
his mouth, he paid not the 

FIG. 74. COCOON OF THE 1 T f 

hickory tussock moth, slightest regard. In fact, 
he is proving that he 
would rather die than eat, as he is now, 
after several days' entire abstinence, very 
nearly through his quiet little life. 

Many of the Tussock moths described above 
came out in January. This year (March, 
1890) not one cocoon has yet given up its 




THE TUSSOCK MOTH. 155 

pretty moth, although the caterpillars of the 
more than a dozen now waited for " spun up " 
quite as early last fall as did those which ap- 
peared in January. Just twenty moths of the 
Saturnia Io have come out in the same " chry- 
salis room " during the first half of this month, 
and the last two weeks of February, as well as 
two Polyphemus moths and two or three other 
kinds, quite throwing the promptness of the 
Tussock moths, this year, into the shade. But 

" They will not be hurried, 
Whatever impatience may do." 




XXVIII. 



WINGED AND WINGLESS. 



IN natural history nothing is small." This 
truth often strikes one when they direct 
the microscope to a little speck, hardly sure 
but that it may prove a grain of sand, to find 
a perfect insect, beautiful in form and adorning. 
There is no caterpillar (perhaps with one 
exception) more handsome, to me, than a quite 





FIG. 75. FEMALE (WINGLESS) OF 
ORGYIA LEUCOSTIGMA. 



FIG. 76. ORGYIA LEUCOSTIGMA 
MOTH. 



common one found on the maple, or willow, and 
often on the rose leaves, in the early summer. 
(And here I may note that, lest I should not 
fully appreciate its beauty, and also that I 



WINGED AND WINGLESS. I 57 

might understand the value of a worthy set- 
ting, one of these caterpillars walked slowly 
over the satin crown of a lady's hat, imme- 
diately in front of me in church one Sabbath 
morning, a perfect picture of beauty, while the 
haste with which it was brushed from its well- 
selected promenade ground by one who saw in it 
' ' only a caterpillar," proved that in some eyes the 
" setting " may be of more value than the gem.) 
This caterpillar is not a very small one after 
all, being an inch or a little more in length ; but 
a microscope is needed 
to reveal fully its many 
special points of beauty. 
Of the several which I 
have tried to watch 
through their caterpillar 
life into the perfect 
imago, I have but one 
left, and for fear he too 
will die, with his caterpillar frock on, I will 
give his portrait with my pencil, although you 
may have brushed him from you hastily, after 
many a summer ramble, unstudied and igno- 
rant of his beauty. He is one inch in length, 
and his prevailing color is a delicate but bright 
lemon-yellow. This forms a fine groundwork 
for touches of peculiar beauty. 




77. CHRYSALIS AND FE- 
MALE MOTH OF ORGYIA 
LEUCOSTIGMA. 



158 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

His head is a pale coral-red. His small 
mouth jet-black. The top of his head and his 
sides are covered and fringed with a few soft 
straw-colored hairs ; those of the head, bend- 
ing forward, giving the coral the appearance 
of being shaded with yellow. If he were not 
so restless it would be more easy to give an 
exact description of him. Moving his tufts 
of hair backward and forward, it is about as 
easy to count his twelve rings as to count a 
long train of cars, in good motion. 




FIG. 78. CATERPILLAR OF THE ORGYIA LEUCOSTIGMA. 

From the first ring there springs a long 
wavy pencil-plume, just back of the coral head ; 
a brush of black hairs, shingled in sets of two 
or three different lengths, and each of these 
hairs feathered like an arrow at the tip. From 
the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh rings, there 
rises a very full, thick, even brush of soft yel- 
low hairs, like four miniature oblong clothes- 



WINGED AND WINGLESS. I 59 

brushes, laid one after another along his back. 
On the top of the eighth ring is a flat spot of 
a beautiful crimson color, while the ninth and 
tenth rings have each a little crimson ball 
upon their top. From the centre of the 
eleventh ring, rises another beautiful pencilled 
plume, and the twelfth is finished with a 
delicate fringe of fine brown hairs. 

Like other caterpillars he changes his coat 
three or four times. The long plumes coming 
off with the discarded coat, while new, fresh, and 
longer ones are ready at once to take their place. 
After wondering, while watching this change, 
how long it would take for these shingled 
plumes to grow, after the old ones were thrown 
off, what was my surprise to see them slowly 
rise up, fully formed and handsomer than 
those laid aside a moment before ! 

He is a very restless caterpillar, and proba- 
bly his dislike to imprisonment is the reason 
he so often fails to reach the chrysalis state. 
The one whose picture was taken above, died, 
but another, a fine specimen, was soon ob- 
tained, and placed in a larger glass box — one 
nearly a foot square. Here, with plenty of 
food — rose leaves and horse-chestnut leaves, (of 
which they are very fond also), he seemed con- 
tent, and grew finely. Being ready to leave 



l6o AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

home for a fortnight's absence, I placed a 
large bottle of water in the box and put a 
branch of maple in it, judging this would afford 
him tolerably fresh food as long as he would 
wish to eat. Returning from my visit, and 
going to see how the prisoner was getting on, 
lo ! he was gone. The maple leaves, however, 
had been pretty thoroughly devoured, and 
thinking he might possible have pressed his 
slender body between one of the ribbon-bound 
and rather lightly fastened sides of the box, I 
searched thoroughly for the little truant. The 
box stood upon a mantel, above which hung a 
heavily framed portrait. This was taken down 
andlo, on the back, in one corner of the frame, 
was a small, very thin, and odd-looking chry- 
salis. It was gray in color, and formed of hair, 
with little rough spots upon the sides and top. 
The plumy pencils had gone to form the 
cocoon ! Not many days after, there was a 
small opening in one end of the cocoon, and 
on its top was a clear white glassy looking, or 
frothy appearing, substance which looked 
something like a few crushed glass beads 
dropped in glittering pinches upon the gray 
cocoon. Presiding over this mass, (of what 
was really a cluster of eggs, covered with a 
frothy substance), was the queerest little apol- 



WINGED AND WINGLESS. l6l 

ogy for a moth ! "Can this be all, after all 
my watching ? " I said. I thought it an un- 
finished bit of Nature's work — a deformity, and 
had well-nigh brushed the whole away in my 
haste, when lo ! a pretty little stranger moth 
flew by me, hovering near the chrysalis. This, 
I thought, might after all, be the true moth 
from my handsome caterpillar, and I de- 
termined to prove it. Confining him, I kept 
watch for another caterpillar, and was fortu- 
nate enough to secure two or three large speci- 
mens ; and, in their transformation to find, 
first, another of the queer, almost wingless, 
whitish moths, and, also, two, the exact mates 
of the pretty gray-winged one I had before 
caught and still held a prisoner. Winged, 
and wingless ! The upper pair of wings to this 
male moth were banded with wavy lines of a 
darker, ashen-gray, and had a small black spot 
near the tip of each wing, with a very small cres- 
cent of white near the outer edge. The back 
of the moth was tufted handsomely, but all of 
ashen-gray. No hint of scarlet, coral, or 
crimson. The glassy frosted eggs again ap- 
peared by the wingless moth (who never left 
them), on the cocoon's top, and opened at 
length to release minute specimens of my coral- 
headed, pencilled-plumed caterpillars. These, 



1 62 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 



not being noticed soon enough to receive their 
rose-leaf meals, soon lived out their little lives, 
but not until I had taken the caterpillar of the 
Orgy ia Leucostigma safely through its little 
round of insect life. Certainly the beauty, 
in his case, lies in the first stage of his exist- 
ence ; although the gray-banded crescent — 
marked Orgyia has a quiet beauty not to be 
overlooked. 




XXIX. 



A RACE FOR LIFE. 



NOT between man and man and not be- 
tween animals, but between a plant and 
an insect. " The gooseberries look splendid- 
ly this year. I 
do not believe 
that they will 
be attacked by 
the persistent 
little enemies 
that ruined 
them last year." 
A day or two 
after this cheer- 
ing prophecy 
last spring an- 
other examina- 
tion of theflour- 
ishing bushes revealed the unmistakable enemy 
in full force. On May 16th, three of them 
163 




164 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

were brought in and put under glass. The 
next day two threw off their coats and the 
third soon after, although eating up to the 
last moment, as is their greedy way. As every 
thing was early last year, so these false cater- 
pillars were some days earlier than the year 
before. On May 20th of that year, they were 
fast putting on their last coats. Some were 
put under glass on that day and carefully 
watched. They had jet-black heads. The 
first ring back of the head was yellow, and 
there was a yellowish ring near the tail. The 
rest was a bluish-green, and the whole spotted 
thickly with black dots looking like little ir- 
regular drops of black sealing-wax. The feet 
were black. In crawling over the leaves one 
came near impaling himself on a thorn. He 
. held back his head, sphinx-like, and considered 
the matter carefully, concluding to take the 
leaf and give the thorn a wide berth. 

The next day (May 2 1 st) one of these changed 
his coat and came out in a pretty and more 
spring-like suit of soft pea-green. He has the 
advantage of the leopard, for not a spot is to 
be seen on his new attire. The yellow bands 
are there as before, but not a vestige of black. 
The head is yellow, and the next two rings a 
brighter yellow, and also the third from the 



A RACE FOR LIFE. 1 65 

last and the last rings. The feet are also a 
very light clear green, almost colorless. 

Keeping a close watch on the second it was 
easy to see him change his coat, which he ac- 
complished in about five minutes. The head 
was first freed, and the old coat slipped back, 
aided by constant movements of the head and 
the fore part of the body already freed. He 
was ready to eat a fresh meal almost as soon 
as he was released. 

After he changed his coat he spun a small 
yellow silk cocoon, almost transparent, draw- 
ing over a notched lobe of the leaf, half hiding 
it from sight. Whether it would come out a 
moth or a butterfly I was uncertain, having 
then never seen a description of this cater- 
pillar. He did neither. On the third of June 
he came out a fly, with four transparent, netted 
wings, black head, \ / 

andyellow body, with 
seven-jointed anten- < 
nse. There are some 
black spots just back 
of the head. There 

is bronze-like gloss fig. 80. currant saw-fly. 
to the clear, pretty wings, the legs are bright 
yellow, and the tips of the toes black. 
A careless observer would not think of his 




1 66 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

being more than an ordinary house-fly dressed 
up a little for an afternoon call. Surprised at 
the shortness of the life of this caterpillar, I 
thought it strange they should be able to de- 
stroy the gooseberry leaves so completely. 




FIG. 8l. CURRANT LEAF EATEN IN CIRCULAR HOLES 
BY THE SAW-FLY. 

The caterpillars soon seemed to be all gone ; 
again the gooseberries threw out fresh young 
leaves and seemed determined to get the upper 
hand, but their triumph was short. Very soon 



A FACE FOR LIFE. l6j 

the new leaves were bordered with the unmis- 
takable black-spotted rim, a second brood left 
the bushes bare, and not being satisfied with 
their full meal adjourned, byway of dessert, to 
the current bushes where, after a short stay, 
their little cast-off dotted coats could be seen 
all over the twigs and their yellow heads busy 
making small crescents in the currant-leaves. 
Not long after, their cocoons were spun and 
they were snugly stowed away to await the new 
leaves of another spring. 

There are some kinds of caterpillars, and 
these are among the number, which birds 
avoid, and so if any one is to come to the 
rescue of the gooseberries it must not be left 
to them. But after watching them through all 
the windings and changes of their curious lit- 
tle lives, and forgiving them for robbing me 
two years in succession of gooseberry tarts and 
currant pie, I will leave this part of the matter 
to certain books where the secret of their ex- 
termination may be found. According to one 
of these books, they have been in this country 
since i860, when they were imported from 
Europe into nurseries in Rochester, New York, 
and are known by the name of " The Imported 
Currant Saw Fly." 



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mm- mi 


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i^ffc! 


. 






llllp 


'^BilEL 




1^-3^.--.. ■ -...0> 


^§j=l^ta 




^~~CTrA$d 



XXX. 

THE BULRUSH CATERPILLAR. 

AMONG the most curious productions of 
New Zealand is the singular plant (called 
by the natives Awhetd), the Sphceria Robertsza, 
or bulrush caterpillar. If Nature ever takes 
revenges, one might imagine this to be a case 
of retaliation. Caterpillars live upon plants, 
devouring not only leaves, but bark, fruit, pith, 
root, and seeds ; in short, every form of vege- 
table life is drawn upon by these voracious rob- 
bers. And here come a little seed that seems 
to say : " Turn about is fair play," and lodges 
on the wrinkled neck of the caterpillar, just at 
the time when he, satisfied with his thefts in 
the vegetable kingdom, goes out of sight, to 
change into a chrysalis and sleep his way into 
a new dress and a new life. A vain hope. 
The seed has the situation. It sends forth its 
tiny green stem, draws its life from the cater- 
pillar, and not only sends up its little shoot 

168 



THE BULRUSH CATERPILLAR. 



with the bulrush-stem capped with a tiny cat- 
tail, but fills with its root the 
entire body of its victim, chang- 
ing it into a white pith-like vege- 
table substance. This, however, 
preserves the exact shape of the 
caterpillar. It is nut-like in sub- 
stance, and is eaten by the na- 
tives with great relish. 

A friend who has recently 
spent some months in New Zea- 
land brought me the specimen, a 
drawing of which is here shown. 

There are other cases of this 
vegetable retaliation, but none 
so curious as this of the bulrush 
caterpillar. The larva of the 
May beetle is attacked by a fun- 
gus which grows out of the sides 
of its head ; but while this growth 
destroys the life of the larva, 
it does not change the larva 
into a vegetable substance. 

A near relation of the mur- 
dered caterpillar is the larva of 
the New Zealand swift moth, 
upon whose tapering head some- 
times appears a similar growth, 



I70 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

which feeds upon the life-blood of the cater- 
pillar until it dies from exhaustion. 

A very curious sight must be one of these 
heavily-burdened crawlers moving along with 
the banner that announces its doom solemnly 
floating above it. For, when the young cater- 




FIG. 83. LARV^; OF THE NEW ZEALAND SWIFT MOTH. 



pillar bears this growth upon its head, it heralds 
the slow but certain death of the overloaded 
insect. 

A transformation as curious, perhaps, in an 
opposite direction, is that of the insect Drilus, 



THE BULRUSH CATERPILLAR. 171 

which, in its larva state, lives upon the snail 
— animal life drawn from animal, instead of 
vegetable, substance. This beetle larva, with 
its sucker-like feet, attaches itself to the shell 
of the snail, watches its opportunity, and slips 
inside. It lives upon the snail (sometimes 
using three snails before changing to the 
chrysalis state), and then, after it has finished 
its last meal, it closes the door of the last shell, 
and sleeps into its winged life. If insects 
think us cruel in putting out their little lives 
rather roughly, or if they complain that some- 
times revengeful seeds change them into 
miniature " caterpillars of salt," as it were, 



Just let them study how they treat each other, 
And learn more tenderness each for his brother ; 
How innocent the small ant-lion, — sleeping 
Beneath his pit of sand, while slowly creeping 

Upon its edge a little ant comes near him, — 
Then quickly, ere the ant has time to fear him, 
Seizes his prey (the small deceitful sinner ! ) 
With no compunction, for his stolen dinner ! 



The dragon-fly, in gauzy lace, and airy, 
Sailing about like some delightful fairy, 
Cares he what beauties butterflies embellish ? 
He darts upon, and eats them with a relish ! 



172 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

In spite of all, if cruel still they style us, 
Just let them think upon the thieving Drilus, 
Who helix-back is very fond of riding. 
And also into neighbors' homes of gliding. 

And takes his meals without thanks to the donor, 
Sleeps in his house and lives upon its owner. 
Three rides he takes, three little homes up-breaking ; 
Of three poor snails three travelling-pantries making. 

A fortnight lives in each, the third one keeping 
Quite to himself, at last ; and soundly sleeping, 
Waits for his change — new life in some fair garden ; 
But quite too late to ask the poor snail's pardon ! 

The singular change in this curious cater- 
pillar is thus described by the friend who 
brought me the above specimen, Rev. J. W. 
Walker of Liverpool, and presented by Mr. 
S. J. Capper, President of the Lancashire 
and Cheshire Entomological Society at a 
meeting of their society : 

" This singular arrangement comes to pass 
in the following fashion. When the cater- 
pillar buries itself in the ground to pass into 
the chrysalis stage, the minute spores of the 
fungus find lodgment in the neck plates of 
the caterpillar. There they vegetate, and 
strike root inside the horny case of the animal, 
living on its tissues. The animal dies, form- 
ing simply a root for this plant, which thus 



THE BULRUSH CATERPILLAR. 1 73 

lives on flesh. The bulrush attains a length 
of about ten inches, its apex, in a state of 
fructification, resembling the common club- 
headed bulrush of our own ditches. When 
fresh, these plants taste like a nut, and are 
eaten by the natives, who also burn them and 
use them for tattooing. When newly dug up, 
the caterpillar's body is soft, and on being 
divided longitudinally the intestinal channel is 
plainly seen. The vegetating process com- 
mences during the life of the caterpillar, for 
decomposition has not set in, nor is the skin 
expanded or contracted in any way. This 
forms one of the most extraordinary freaks of 
nature in the connection between animal and 
vegetable, and is perhaps unequalled in the 
annals of biology." 




XXXI. 



A BEADED CATERPILLAR. 



AVERY pretty, small, smooth caterpillar 
was given me last fall, September, '88, 
found on some flowers of a bouquet, so that 
its special food could not be identified. A 
few days later, I was fortunate enough to find 
one like it upon a spray of golden-rod. These 
caterpillars were of a seal-brown color — all one 
shade of brown, very velvety in texture, about 
an inch and a quarter long, and cylindrical ; of 
one size throughout and about one third aslarge 
as an ordinary pipe-stem. What was my sur- 
prise on looking at the one given me (which I 
had placed under a glass), half an hour later, to 
see a very different looking caterpillar. Down 
each side was a row of white beads, perfectly 
symmetrical, and of a pure milky or chalky 
whiteness, globular and about the size of an 
ordinary pin's head. 

Taking a magnifying glass I watched it with 
174 



A BEADED CATERPILLAR. 17$ 

interest. Presently one of the white beads dis- 
appeared, then another and another twinkled 
out, until lo ! the plain seal-brown caterpillar 
again. Touching it with a little stick, out 
came a bead here and there, their irregularity 
giving it a most curious look. I tried the 
second caterpillar, and it also threw out the 
chalk beads. I saw they were from the spira- 
cles, but had never seen such a phenomenon 
before. On writing to Prof. Lintner about 
them, he replied that he had not observed any 
thing of the kind. The caterpillars, doubtless, 
may be found upon the golden-rod, as they ate 
of this plant and no other, which was tried, 
but neither of them (probably from having 
been disturbed too much in order to watch 
the coming and going of the beads), made a 
chrysalis. They are now small dried speci- 
mens, but remains of the white dots are visible 
upon them. 

A few days since, I was interested in coming 
across a hint of this kind, found in an old en- 
cyclopaedia (Rees, Art. "Stigmata"), in the 
following sentence. Speaking of experiments 
by Malpighi upon stigmata, he says : 

"Mr. Reamer repeated his experiments, and 
concluded that these apertures served only for 
the Aspiration of the air, which the caterpillar 



176 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

afterwards spired through the whole super- 
ficies of its body, because he could never 
observe that any bubbles of air were ever 
driven out of these stigmata ; but Mr. Bonnet, 
on the contrary, having seen bubbles of air 
coming out of these openings was led to infer 
that the Aspired air was also respired or dis- 
charged through these same orifices." 

Now, if in the case of these two caterpillars, 
it had been merely " bubbles of air," would not 
the beads have been glass-like in clearness, in- 
stead of chalk-white ; and could they have 
remained perfectly globular so long, as some 
of them did for several minutes ? These 
questions it would be interesting to have 
answered, as well as to learn the complete 
history, in the imago, should any be able to 
secure a specimen from next autumn's golden- 
rod. 



XXXII. 



ATTACUS CYNTHIA. 



ON March 21, 1879, I received from a 
friend in New York a box containing 
nine cocoons. When I first looked at them I 
thought they were cocoons of the Attacus 
Prometheus, so much, in all but their size, did 
they resemble those familiar cocoons, many of 
which I had watched open in the years before. 
Like those of the Prometheus, the cocoon is 
made with the leaf on which it feeds drawn 
partially or entirely about it, and this is 
securely fastened to the tree stem or branchlet; 
but often upon so small a stem that this tight 
winding does little toward the safety of the 
chrysalis. Many fall from the tree and are 
blown about, until, as one writer says, "the 
streets of the cities in which they have become 
wild are often strewn with such cocoons, which 
get trodden on and destroyed." On cutting 
open the cocoon of a few of my nine I found 




FIG. 84. ATTACUS CYNTHIA : a, EGGS \ b, LARVA ; C, COCOON J d, CHRYSALIS ; 

e, female moth (after Riley). 



ATTACUS CYNTHIA. 1 79 

the chrysalids of a dark yellowish-brown, and 
in shape much like those of the Prometheus. 

The first of these cocoons gave up its 
beautiful imago on the 24th of April, giving 
me a most pleasant surprise in a large moth of 
great delicacy and beauty of coloring. The 
body was thick and looked as if made of soft 
dark cotton with a close dotting of white tufts 
over it. The under side of the body was white 
tufted, on a yellowish-colored ground. The 
wings are of a yellowish-green hue, with vari- 
able markings, among which lavender is 
prominent. There is a crescent upon each 
wing, and a line of white edged with rose- 
color running across them gives it a striking 
and peculiar beauty. The moth varies in the 
time of waking from its chrysalis sleep, some 
remaining in their flossy-lined cocoons a much 
shorter time than others. The first one that 
came out of those sent me was a little over a 
month in making its exit. 

The next moth of the " nine " came out on 
June 8th. It was handsomer in shading and 
colors than the first. The prevailing color 
was a beautiful shade of olive-green. The 
four crescents were a very light lavender color 
with a lower border of white and a yellowish 
olive-green. Through the centre of each wing 



l8o AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

was a wavy band of darker olive-green. But 
one must see to appreciate a moth with so 
many colors and such varied markings. 

One more of the " nine," Cynthia's, came out 
a perfect moth, but, unfortunately, in attempt- 
ing to escape in securing his liberty he rushed 
to his death. How the glass lid of his prison 
got moved enough for his escape I never knew, 
but I found him caught and marred (injured so 
that he died) in the partially-closed window of 
the room. How he was caught was also a 
mystery. The only solution that could occur 
to me being that he alighted on the frame 
of the sash, and was not noticed by the person 
who opened the window too suddenly for his 
attempted escape. 

Through care of many other moths, and 
absence from home, the record ends here. 
One of these moths was secured from a cocoon 
given me, on June 20th of the next year, since 
which time I have not been fortunate enough 
to secure any. 

The Cynthia is a native of Japan and China. 
It was introduced into France over thirty 
years ago, and many attempts have been made 
to use the floss of the cocoon in making silk, 
which have proved partially successful. 



XXXIII. 



THE TURNUS BUTTERFLY. 



FIG. 85. CATERPILLAR OF PAPILIO 

TURNUS. 



ALTHOUGH the large gayly-colored 
butterfly, Papilio turnus — (as the best 
American butterfly-knower, Mr. W. H. Ed- 
wards, of Coalburgh, W. Va., says), " inhabits 
all sections of the United States, from the 
Atlantic to the 
Rocky Mountains, 
and from Maine to 
Florida and Tex- 
as," it had never 
been my good fortune to meet with one until I 
saw these flying over the large tulip trees of 
Eastern Pennsylvania. Their brilliant coloring 
attracted my attention, but their flight seemed 
always so high that after many attempts, I gave 
up the hope of securing one in the ordinary 
way. Had I known or thought of the cater- 
pillar, or of the tiny egg, with its little silken 
hammock ready almost as soon as hatched, on 
181 



1 82 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

the upper side of a tulip leaf, I could sooner 
have had possession of what I so much desired. 
Or had I known that, when attracted by its 
favorite flowers, the " blossoms of the wild 
plum," (for which I give it great credit as 
choosing almost the sweetest flower that 
blooms), or hovering over beds of phlox, or 
patches of red clover, it was so lost amid the 
sweets of its eager meal that it could "be cap- 
tured with the utmost ease," or that at any 
given time or place it could possibly have been 
found so abundant that Mr. Scudder (a very 
careful and truthful scientist) could assert that 
" sixty-nine of these butterflies had been caught 
between the hands at one grasp ! " I certainly 
should not have paid ten cents a piece for two 
or three broken-winged specimens brought me 
by a little boy hired to secure the prize for 
my collection. 

However, a broken-winged butterfly,is better 
than none, and studying from these, their mar- 
vellous beauty made me but too glad to learn 
that the caterpillar lived chiefly upon the tulip- 
tree leaves, although it did not despise many 
other varieties of food. Fortunately there were 
three of these handsome trees at our own door, 
but I had never seen the butterfly about them. 
I had only seen it, in long rambles, darting 



1 84 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

through the upper boughs, (and often above 
all the boughs) of the tallest tulip-trees on the 
banks of the Delaware. Now for a search at 
home. Looking carefully among the lower 
leaves of the tulip, no egg was to be seen ; 
(it needs a trained eye to see a small egg on a 
high bough !) but what is this singular looking 
caterpillar, walking toward me on the pave- 
ment near these trees ? I capture him and 
say : " Perhaps he may show me yet my Papilio 
turnus." It was true prophecy. He was a 
dull looking and curiously marked little fellow, 
with a figure " 10" always plainly marked on 
about the third ring on each side of his dark 
brown body, not far from the very large head, 
and giving him a quaint appearance, as sug- 
gestive of an inquiring eye. 

My first Turnus caterpillar made his chrysalis 
September 20, 1878. He suspended himself 
much as the Asterias does, with a slender loop 
supporting him against the side of the box. The 
chrysalis, also resembles that of the Asterias ; 
is a yellowish-brown in color and rough in tex- 
ture, with his head prolonged in two ear-like 
points, and a similar projection a little below 
the head in front. [I have four of these now 
waiting (March 20, '90) their exit, after a six 
months' sleep.] 



THE TURN US BUTTERFLY. 1 85 

This first chrysalis of 'j& opened on March 
12, 1879. A large and handsome butterfly, 
with no rude marks of boy capture marring his 
perfect sunny wings of bright black and yellow. 
Since then I have had many such openings, 
but none ever gave me a more welcome or 
highly prized Turnus than this. I found a fine 
caterpillar of this kind in Sing Sing, N. Y., in 
the summer of '82, and watched it make its 
chrysalis on the 21st the following September. 
Another which I studied more carefully a few 
days later, as he made this change, gave me a 
two hours' interesting study with the micro- 
scope on the evening of the 23d of September. 
More than once I thought he had died from 
his perfect stillness after efforts to effect his 
change. On each side of this caterpillar, I 
noticed (without the microscope, but very 
plainly with it), three spots of vermilion sur- 
rounded by a cluster of brown dots. Another, 
not yet ready to change, although suspended 
against the side of the box, had a band of 
orange-yellow around the third ring. The one 
with vermilion spots I saw finally throw off 
his coat as if glad to be rid of it. The first of 
these chrysalids opened on April 6, 1883. 
Yellow and black dashed with spots of bright 
orange. On April 16th, another opened, large 



1 86 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

and handsome as any yet secured. From two 
or three of the Turnis chrysalids came a curious 
Ichneumon fly. 

It is a singular fact that the female of this 
butterfly in climates warmer than that of Penn- 
sylvania are often almost entirely black. These 
are described in Mr. Wm. H. Edwards' full 
account of this butterfly in his beautiful work 
on "The Butterflies of North America." He 
speaks of this change of color as "without a 
strict parallel among butterflies." Another 
butterfly-collector says that " in Georgia half 
the females of the Turnus are black." 

In all that I have seen, the male and female 
Turnus butterflies are yellow and black and 
very much alike in their appearance. 

Why there should be this curious change of 
color in those of the Southern climates is not 
satisfactorily accounted for ; and although sev- 
eral ingenious "suppositions" have been given 
it is still left, by the best entomologists among 
the mysteries which cannot be explained. 




XXXIV. 

THE BEECH-NUT BOX. [LIMACODES SCAPHA.] 

(For illustration, see preface.*) 

IT is said by Harris, in his " Entomological 
Correspondence," of that most singular 
genus of moths, the Limacodes, that " they 
remain a long time in their cocoons, or in 
earth, before turning to pupae." To this fact 
the student of entomology will give a ready 
assent ! 

In his larger work, Harris says of this 
Limodes scapha : "My specimens gener- 
ally died after they had made their cocoon, 
and, consequently, the moth is unknown to 
me." Why he should use the word "gen- 
erally" is a question, when if one only had not 
died, the moth might have been known to 
him. 

By substituting always for " generally," my 
experience with the Limodes scapha is told. 



1 88 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

Yet there is too much of curious interest in 
his first and second stage to omit a sketch of 
what, so far, must be but two thirds of a little 
life. He has certainly given me enough 
trouble, by way of watching and waiting, 
to warrant me in taking so much of his life as 
I can, especially as it is in a way which he 
cannot feel. He is, as a caterpillar, correctly 
figured (from a photograph which I had taken 
of one fine specimen) in the preface, where he 
is compared to the old-fashioned " beech-nut 
box." Harris saw rather a likeness to a 
little boat, and so " named him scapka (a 
skiff)." 

As the change to a pupa tcsttally takes place 
within a few days after the caterpillar has 
made its cocoon, one, before learning that the 
Scapha often remains for months in his little 
round parchment-like home, before throwing 
ofT his caterpillar coat, might easily give him 
up as dead, and throw away what would have 
paid for a little longer waiting. This I have 
done with one or two other kinds of cater- 
pillars, who have the same habit, learning 
afterward my mistake. Some caterpillars lie 
in their cocoons through an entire winter, and 
then change into a chrysalis and finally come 
out into their perfect state. 



THE BEECH-NUT BOX. 



In a walk down a shaded lane, in Septem- 
ber, 1879, I found my first Limacodes scapha. 
It seemed at first uncertain whether it was 
a raised place in the leaf, from some insect's 
sting, or something that was alive. I took it 
home, and, even with a microscope, could 
hardly determine whether it was animal or 
vegetable. At last it moved a little, not its 
position, but only a little contraction of the 
body, keeping almost as still as the leaf 
throughout the day. After the gas was 
lighted in the evening, I sat down with my 
microscope for a good look, and lo ! the 
Scapha was just changing his coat. He was 
very little altered in appearance. He was 
a delicate pea-green, with a light spot of 
grayish brown on the top of his back, which 
slopes up to the centre and down again, like a 
water-shed. Just before he changed his coat, 
he puffed up and swelled like a puff-ball. He 
seems to be stomach-footed, like the saddle 
worm. He is marked by horizontal cross lines, 
and there are two triangular spots between 
each of the two lines before the middle line of 
his body, and two after it. He puffs out now 
and then, until he resembles a globe-fish. 
There are irregular brownish-gray spots on 
the sides, below a light central line, running 



I90 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

through the centre from the broader front 
nearly to the apex. Back of the centre on 
the top, but on the backward slope, are two 
smaller grayish-brown spots. From 9 a.m. 
to 8 in the evening he has not changed 
his position on the sumach leaf, on which 
he was found. Harris gives the "walnut " as 
the food of the Scapha. This Scapha began 
to eat on the 23d (the day after he changed 
his coat) from an apple leaf. On October 5th 
the Scapha was very restless. He was now a 
pale straw color, or more nearly cream color. 
He walked about softly, looking as if gliding 
on water, like a little fairy-boat. The two 
spots on his back, just below the centre, 
look like two miniature lakes, and the two 
near the end are pear-shaped. The sides 
appear as if crimped. There are two small 
raised points on each side, at the centre line, 
very curious in appearance, which have showed 
from the first as a noticeable feature, and sug- 
gestive of eyes. I had thought they might 
be, when a friend, to whom I showed it, asked 
at once : "Are those little points eyes?" It 
would be no queerer place for them than the 
snail has for his. His head, for the most 
part, is entirely out of sight. When he puts 
it out (as a turtle does from its shell), it 



THE BEECH-NUT BOX. I9I 

is round, of a light ochre-yellow brown, and 
has two pairs of feelers, one pair a little 
shorter than the other. 

The Scapha has eight distinct breathing- 
holes, or spiracles, nearly round, and very 
dark brown or black, and about the size of a 
small period in fine print. This description, 
from my butterfly journal, ends with the true 
remark : " It seems as if, with a microscope, 
I might write an hour longer and not tell all 
his markings." 

On October 9th he began to spin a slender 
cocoon. After beginning a very gossamer- 
like hammock, he stopped work and remained 
three days quite still, and eating nothing. 
More than once I was " sure " he was dead. 
Then he would move again, slowly rocking his 
tiny boat from stem to stern. Then he would 
draw in his head, and seem to be making 
an effort to change his coat, once going clear 
over in a funny summersault in the attempt. 
He was now orange-colored, and shrunken 
into hills and valleys. Towards evening he 
crept around to the little floss-silk tent or 
hammock, which he began and discarded some 
days before, and attempted to join a few 
floating threads for his cocoon, although his 
internal resources must have been limited, as 



I92 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

he had not tasted food for four days ! A 
magnificent example of patience and perse- 
verance, far exceeding that of Bruce's spider, 
which had the physical strength with the 
patience, while the poor Scapha had to sup- 
ply both. A good lesson from the little 
Limacodes, even if the first period of his 
triple life should be all he will ever attain. 
October. 1 oth and 11th he was still at work, 
walking up and down and all around his box, 
working away toward his change. He had 
earned the right to call this "a changing 
world " ; the only fear was that he would not 
find it big enough for him to change in ! 

October 13th. — Such an exhibition of life 
as the Scapha gives is seldom seen. Moving 
about, yet not having touched a leaf for a 
week and a half ! The last record of him, 
alive, was on October 17th. Then he gave 
up his tent-working, and soon his struggle for 
life. Since then I have had several of these 
Limacodes, and some of them have made 
a nice plump cocoon, but never yet has one 
opened. On breaking the cocoon of one, after 
there was no hope of life about it, I found the 
shell very similar to that of the egg of a bird. 
It is nearly round, a dark brown in color, and 
smooth itself, although usually having a loose 




THE BEECH-NUT BOX. 1 93 

dark flossy substance around it. I have now 
(March, 1890) three or four well made Scapha 
cocoons, and the wish to see them give up the 
imago is in due proportion to the interest with 
which its caterpillar life has been watched. 
Although Harris had failed 
to see the imago, and many 
others have had the same 
experience, it has been safely 
brought through its changes, 
and Packard has given the FIG ' 87 ' SG ™ MOTH - 
figure of the perfect insect, from which the moth 
here is taken, in his " Guide to the Study of In- 
sects," p. 290. He says of the moth : " It is 
light cinnamon brown, with a dark tan-colored 
triangular spot, lined externally with silver, 
which is continued along the costa " (or outer 
edge of the wing) "to the base of the wing, 
and terminates sharply on the apex." A liv- 
ing proof, with its silver finish, that riches will 
still " take to themselves wings, and fly away." 

A little after finishing the above sketch 
(March 28, 1890), to my very pleasant sur- 
prise, I found under a glass in the chrysalis 
room my first Limacodes moth ! He had 
stolen a march upon me at last, and, without 
observation, had shaken out his wings of 



194 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

"silver and cinnamon brown," lived his brief 
life (without the welcome and attention that 
would have been gladly given), and fallen 
asleep on the floor of his little prison ; his 
empty brown cocoon and its little round lid 
lying beside him. He is, however, a prize in 
himself, and a herald of hope for the four 
still unopened brown balls, for which he has 
secured a closer watch for their possible 
opening. 






IJ^k^ 










KE3?P|a'i/^? - :^S^ 


WEffi$ 











XXXV. 

THE MONKEY-FACED MOTH. 

OF all the curious caterpillars it has been my 
good fortune to see, the palm, for sheer 
oddity, may be given to that of the Hag Moth. 
On September 18, 1883, this curious brown cat- 
erpiller was given me by a friend, taken from a 
cherry- or apple-tree. It is brown in color, 




monkey-faced moth, 
pithecium) 



; MOTH (PHOBETRON 



very nearly the shade of an almond meat. It 
is rough in appearance and most singular in 
form. It was a study to find at which end of 
him was the head, for, like that of the " saddle 
worm " (Empretia stimulea) and that of the 
195 



I96 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

Limacodes scapha, to which genus he also 
belongs, his head is out of sight, under the 
first ring. There are three singular appen- 
dages, flanges or fins they might be called, on 
each side, as shown in the sketch of him 
above. The appearance of this "flange" is 
much like one of the points of a star-fish, even 
upon close examination, and there is the same 
little blackish round-dot finish at the base of 
each, or where it joins the body. Upon ex- 
amination with the microscope there is to be 
seen a double row of starry spines (eight on 
each side) down the top of the back, but so 
fine (while yet perfect stars) and so exactly 
the color of the rest of the body as only to be 
noticed with the microscope. Just under the 
upper surface of the caterpillar (so as not to 
be seen from looking at it above) there is a 
row of smaller-sized stars extending around 
the entire, body. Had this been noticed by 
the entomologist who gave him his name he 
might have had a prettier one than that chosen 
from his homeliest feature. For myself I shall 
call him the Hidden-Star Caterpillar. He is 
like the Scapha in his movements, gliding 
along the leaf with a slow, graceful motion ; 
and if disturbed, he puts down his head on to 
the leaf, bending over and making a low 



THE MONKEY-FACED MOTH. \Qj 

brown bridge of himself. His head is small, 
amber-color in the centre and dark-brown on 
either side. He stands on the side or edge of 
the leaf to eat, bending his head over the leaf 
so that you cannot see him eat, except by 
looking on the under side of the leaf. He 
eats the cherry-leaf readily, and, although his 
motion seems slow, he goes very soon from 
one end of the long leaf to the other. It is a 
difficult thing to see him eat, even when you 
know by the melting away of the leaf that he 
is taking a meal, and have also your microscope 
well adjusted for observation. This is because 
his mouth is so protected by a fleshy half-hood 
on each side that you can only see the crescent 
he cuts growing larger, and his head (wherever 
it is !) moving along to meet new demands of 
his cherry-leaf. I have watched the same 
thing in the " Saddle" caterpillar ; his fleshy 
hood sucks down upon the leaf and hides his 
mouth entirely. 

On the 23d of September, five days after he 
was given to me, he began to throw off his 
flanges — not all at once, but gradually, one on 
the 23d and the next on the 26th. On the 
edge of most of these flanges, near the end, 
there are two small black hairs with little black 
knobs, like tiny pins stuck in, and from this 



I98 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

point they seem to break off most easily. On 
the 26th, after losing off two flanges, he 
fastened himself between two leaves prepara- 
tory to making his cocoon. On the 28th the 
hard, almost round, blackish-brown cocoon 
was finished, in size and shape as given above, 
and, strangely enough, having its flanges stuck 
around it by way of ornamentation ! I had 
read of this curious habit of the Hag Moth 
before, and could scarcely believe it possible 
that he could pick up and attach these appen- 
dages to his cocoon after it seemed finished. 
But " seeing is believing," and there they 
surely were, and evidently as firmly fixed to 
the little ball as they had formerly been to his 
body. I should have seen how this was done, 
at the risk of disturbing him in his cherry-leaf 
covering, had he not stolen a march on me 
when I "was busy here and there," and so 
kept his secret a mystery still. 

Watching was now over, and, except to 
label him in his glass prison, he might be for- 
gotten until the winter was over and gone. 
Yes, and the spring also. On the 5th of June 
the lid of the little brown house was thrown 
back a very little, and out stepped this very 
pretty moth after nearly a ten-months' sleep. 
He flies quickly from one part of the box to 



THE MONKEY-FACED MOTH. 1 99 

another, or walks with his funny twinkling 
feet rapidly up the glass, a contrast as surpris- 
ing to the slow-motioned caterpillar as is the 
handsome coat he now wears to the rough 
brown jacket of his caterpillar days. So far 
as I could see, or prove by tempting sweets, I 
could not find that he had a tongue. Perhaps 
he might have found it himself had he been 
free to fly from honey-cup to honey-cup 
of real out-door flowers. Yet I think if he 
had been very hungry and had any means of 
supplying his need, he would not have scorned 
the sugared moss that seemed to have no at- 
traction for him. True to his first and second 
stages, he is still brown, but handsomely shaded, 
making so much of the different shades of his 
favorite color as to give him a very handsome 
dress. The principal color is almost a seal- 
brown (a few shades lighter), and the front 
wings marked with dashes or spots of a light 
yellow-brown, with a wavy band of the same 
color crossing them ; a spot of still lighter 
brown marks the centre, and the edges of the 
wings are a shade of still darker and very rich 
reddish-brown. His beauty can only be really 
known under the microscope, which brings out 
a richness of coloring and beauty of arrange- 
ment that redeems the Hag Moth from any 



200 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

suggestion of homeliness by his most unfortu- 
nate and inappropriate name. When he came 
out from his brown cocoon the skin of the 
pupa, clear as crystal and perfect in shape 
throughout, came with him, and lies now by 
his side in his little box, and the lid of the 
cocoon flew back so exactly in place that 
to-day one might look at it carefully and think 
it a perfect, unbroken chrysalis. Besides the 
six flanges described, there were also six 
miniature ones, which scarcely showed beside 
the longer curved ones, but which, like them, 
fell off, and were, in part, at least, attached to 
the little brown cocoon. Just twelve in all, 
now safe beside the cocoon, the pupa case, 
and perfect insect. All that is wanting is the 
triple row of stars, but by one who has once 
seen them he will be still remembered as the 
Hidden-Star Moth. 




XXXVI. 

THE SMARTWEED CATERPILLAR. 

ON the 25th of May, 1878, a bright-col- 
ored caterpillar, which I had found on 
the smartweed, made a cocoon. It was very 
thin, and of an almost glass-like material, ex- 
cept that the top was ornamented by fifteen or 
twenty of the little knobs of the pink blossoms 
on which it had been feeding. The cocoon 
was boat-shaped, and the chrysalis inside was 
a rich, shiny light brown, tapering from the 
head to a very pointed end. 

The moth came out on June 14th, after 
about three weeks from his change to a chrys- 
alis. He is very delicate in coloring, without 
a trace of the rich hues he wore as a caterpil- 
lar. The upper wings are a bright silvery 
white, dotted slightly with dark gray, the edges 
rounded, and delicately finished with narrow 
white fringe, just above which is a row of tiny 
black dots, each at the end of a crimped line 



202 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 



or fold. The under wings are silvery-white in 
fluted folds, with no color except a row of very 
minute black dots above their beautiful silver- 
fringed finish. The body is ringed with alter- 
nate silvery-white and brownish-black dashes 




THE SMARTWEED CATERPILLAR. 



on a white ground. The antennae are long, 
not feathered, and slightly curled at the end. 
The joints of the feet next the body are broad- 
ly feathered, but slender to the foot itself — 
looking like a child's arm in a short puffed 
sleeve. 



THE SMARWTEED CATERPILLAR. 203 

The caterpillar of this moth, as I have said, 
is very gayly colored. The head is jet black, 
with a few yellowish-white bristly hairs falling 
forward from it and from the first (black) ring. 
The second ring and all the rest but the last 
two have on them six reddish-brown little 
knobs, with yellow radiating spines, with two 
short white lines below each circle of spines. 
The first ring has two short white lines, the 
first one of the two interrupted or broken in 
the middle and the second whole ; on the 

second ring this is exactly reversed, the first 
line whole and the second broken z~z, and the 
third is the same ; all the rest are broken and 
more irregular. On the last two rings there 
is only a white line. A scalloped line of bright 
gamboge yellow runs down each side of the 
caterpillar, and little dashes of yellow here 
and there over another line of white. The 
reddish-brown knobs are on a velvety-black 
ground, giving the whole a very rich appear- 
ance. The under part is a dark-brown. Some- 
times the cocoon is like thin white silk and 
almost transparent. The nearest description 
answering to what I have only known as the 
"Smartweed Caterpillar," is the Apatela oblin- 
ita, or, as it is sometimes called, " The Smeared 
Dagger," 



204 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

Both the caterpillar and moth very nearly 
answer to this description, the greatest differ- 
ence being the transformation, as one writer 
gives it, "occurring in the ground." I have often 
raised the moth from the caterpillar and never 
seen any variation in the form of its cocoon, 
until a most singular experience last September, 
which has given me a rare " specimen " indeed. 
A caterpillar from the Smartweed, to all appear- 
ance the same as above described, was secured 
and placed in a glass box. To my surprise, 
when the time came for his change, instead of 
spinning his thin cocoon he went up the side 
of the glass and fastened himself in exact imi- 
tation of the Asterias or Turnus butterfly, by 
a slender thread, with no hint of a cocoon ! 
Here he stayed, not throwing off his skin, but 
keeping his position so long that I was led to 
examine carefully into his case. What was 
my surprise to find that he had changed into 
a white substance closely resembling chalk. 
The head retained its natural color, being even 
brighter than before. All the rest was hard 
and white throughout. Where had the bril- 
liant colors gone ? He now sleeps in a gilt 
box on a bed of pink cotton, a curiosity as well 
as a lesson, for what words could so plainly 
emphasize the truth that in giving up our own 



THE SMARTWEED CATERPILLAR. 205 

natural way of living in the attempt to imitate 
others, we shall neither become like them nor 
keep our own identity, and only remain fit speci- 
mens for lovers of the grotesque to place in 
their cabinet of curiosities. 




XXXVII. 

THE GREAT LEOPARD MOTH. 

ON the 4th of October, 1884, I received 
from a friend in Orlando, Florida, a 
handsome, quite large moth, and a large 
number of eggs which were laid in the box 
after its capture in the pine woods. The 
moth was white and covered with black rings 
and ovals. Its body on the upper part was yel- 
low, with rich and very dark bronze-blue spots 
on the back and sides, while the under part was 
white, with black dots to match the upper 
wings. The hinder wings were white, with a 
few irregular black spots on the border. The 
moth was about two inches across. It was 
left a day or two in the box before sending, 
and my friend, on looking at it before mailing, 
wrote: "As the 'white owl' in the box was 
so still I said, ' If he is dead I '11 send him,' 
and when I looked, what a sight met my eyes ! 
Hundreds of turquoises in layers — in tiers — 
206 



THE GREAT LEOPARD MOTH. 



207 





FIG. 90. THE GREAT LEOPARD MOTH. [sCRIBONIA]. 
a, FEMALE ; b, MALE. 




CATERPILLAR OF LEOPARD MOTH (CURLED UP LIKE A 
CHESTNUT BURR) . 



208 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

and now you can have plenty of white owls. 
But what shall they be fed with ? As they 
were found in the pine woods, possibly on the 
Blackjack oak leaves." A part of the " tur- 
quoises " were sent to Professor Lintner, who 
kindly identified them, and gave as their food 
plants, plantain, wild sunflower, and willow, 
with one or two other varieties of plants. He 
pronounced them eggs of " The Great Leopard 
Moth," Scribonia, which is "the largest of the 
American Arctians." Two days after receiv- 
ing them (on the 6th of October) the little 
caterpillars came out in hosts, and readily" ate 
plantain leaves, making fine lace-work of the 
leaf, eating only the parenchyma. At first they 
were about y 1 ^ of an inch long, amber colored 
alternating with dark brown. A brown head 
and one brown ring, next ; then two clear 
amber rings, and three brown with one amber 
at the end. Long black and white hairs 
(about evenly divided) were scattered sparsely 
over the body. They would not eat oak or 
any other leaves with which I tried them, ex- 
cept mallows, which they ate as readily as 
plantain. On the 27th of October they were 
about an inch in length, growing very slowly, 
and changing to a rust-red color after the first 
month. 



THE GREAT LEOPARD MOTH. 209 

On November 3d I gathered a quantity of 
plaintain, now difficult to find, and made a 
" silo " by packing it closely in a glass jar, 
hoping it would last them until they " spun 
up." It was a vain hope. The ice and sleet 
and snow of late November covered all the 
"green things growing," and still the Scri- 
bonias lived and still craved food. On Novem- 
ber 25th I succeeded in getting enough mallows 
and catnip to last a few days. But soon this 
was gone and more snow came and still they 
lived on ! They had had six moults, and 
where was it all to end ? A supply of spinach 
from the grocers, while it was to be had, took 
them into December. Now and then in some 
shaded nook a little mallows could be found, 
even a small "basket-full " is recorded for the 
8th of December. On December 9th I "made 
over a dozen little cornucopias and placed in 
their boxes to entice them to go into chrysa- 
lids !" But caterpillars will not be " hurried" 
any more than chrysalids, and still they 
ate on ! Christmas came and went, deep 
snows followed, the old year went out and 
the new came in, and still the Scribonias 
lived on. I became discouraged and had 
about given them up to time and fate 
when a card from Professor Lintner, on Janu- 



2IO AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

ary ioth, announced the arrival of two fine 
Great Leopard Moths. Again I attempted to 
satisfy them with cabbage leaf, and as a last 
resort (" necessity being the mother of inven- 
tion ") they were fed on apples, sliced so thin 
as to make them think it was leaves with which 
they were supplied. On the 29th of January 
the first Scribonia chrysalis was made. On 
the 30th there were seven chrysalids ; on the 
31st, eleven. On the nth of February I 
watched one of the caterpillars change into 
the chrysalis. It took a little over an hour 
before the heavy brown coat, with its crimson 
bands, was thrown off, and the plain brown 
chrysalis was still. 

When these caterpillars had reached their 
last moult I was surprised to find that I had 
once had two specimens of the same, found in 
Pennsylvania (Easton). They lived a long 
time, but finally seemed so stupid and still 
they were given up as useless, and thrown 
away. No doubt had " patience " with them 
had its " perfect work " I should much sooner 
have known the beautiful Great Leopard 
Moth. They were very similar to the com- 
mon brown and black caterpillar of the Arctia 
Isabella or Isabella tiger-moth, but about 
twice the size, and on close looking showing a 



THE GREAT LEOPARD MOTH. 211 

bright crimson line marking each ring. Har- 
ris says of it : " It has been confidently re- 
ported to me that the Great Leopard Moth 
has been seen in Brookline, but it must be 
very rare here for I have never heard of its 
being taken in any part of New England. 
Specimens of this fine insect would be a very 
acceptable addition to any collection of such 
objects." I thought I fully understood that 
last remark ! I understood it better on March 
\th, when after all the watching and waiting 
two fine specimens of the Great Leopard 
Moth stepped from their chrysalids, and were 
at once named " Cleveland " and " Hen- 
dricks," in spite of my politics, in honor of 
the two successful candidates, who after an 
equally long struggle were inaugurated on 
that day ! After this it grew to be no surprise 
as one after another left their brown cases 
until all had made their exit, and "specimens" 
were at a discount ; although the beauty of 
the moths paid, after all, for the very leisurely 
way in which they chose to give this "very 
acceptable addition " to our collection. 




FIG. 92. THE EUDAMUS TITYRUS. 

XXXVIII. 

A BUTTERFLY CHASE. 

ON the 24th of August, 1881, a very 
singular caterpillar was given me. He 
was of a pale yellow-green color, with a large 
red head, on each side of which were two 
round bright-yellow spots, giving him the ap- 
pearance of looking at you with very big eyes. 
The spiracles were small, and black, and the 
feet orange color. His habits were as pecu- 
liar as his looks. He kept closely to the 
under side of the wistaria leaf on which he 
fed, although this caterpillar likes the wild 
bean equally well. He even fastened himself 
slightly to the leaf by spinning a few threads, 
to secure him more effectually from prying 
eyes. But as he ate of the leaf, in nearly 
circular holes (from near its centre), I could 
watch the movements of his head from above, 
yet could not see him actually eating. I 



A BUTTERFLY CHASE. 213 

watched in vain for this, and came near 
starving him, by deciding that he did not want 
food, until I learned his secret, which was that 
he ate only in the night. I kept him until 
August 31st, when, in some mysterious man- 
ner, he slipped the moorings to his leaf, and 
managed also to get out of his glass prison, 
and I saw him no more. But the first lesson 
was secure. In September (5th), 1887, during 
a woods-ramble, I found another caterpillar of 
this kind upon a wild bean (the Wistaria 
frutescens). His red head, with the large 
yellow spots like eyes, quickly led me to know 
him. His neck seems set in his head, like a 
cork in a bottle, only that it turns easily, and 
reminds one of the neck of a toy needle-box 
bird. Under the microscope the head is rough, 
like the rind of a cantelope. He, too, ate 
only at night. A few hours after I had secured 
him, on looking at him his head seemed a 
clear amber- (glass-like) yellow, but on close 
examination it proved to be only the old shell 
of the head, not detached, but pushed forward, 
and soon it fell upon the bottom of the box, 
the new head looking brighter than ever, 
and very soon the old coat followed, and all 
was fresh and new. So far he got, but failed 
to make a chrysalis! In May, 1888, four 



214 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

chrysalids were given me by a friend. What 
they were was not known. They were a dull 
yellowish-brown in color, very full-bodied, the 
four or five rings at the end having a screw- 
like appearance, and looking on the entire 
surface, with its fine crinkles, like " crackle- 
ware." On the 26th of May I heard a little 
rattling noise from one of the four chrysalids, 
and soon two small black eyes appeared at an 
opening on the back, just below the head. It 
was an Ichneumon fly, and the tough chrysalis 
gave him work enough to pay for his robbery. 
He thrust out a pair of antennae, and unrolled 
an amber tongue, and took sweetened water 
from his chrysalis-case prison, much to my 
amusement. He did not succeed in freeing 
himself until the next day, when I broke a 
small bit of the case, when he walked out, and 
about the box, a russet-brown fly, with a black 
head, smoke-colored wings, black antennae, 
with one bar of honey-yellow across them. 
The under body was yellow, two light lemon- 
yellow spots on the thorax. The thighs were 
russet-yellow. He was about the size of an 
ordinary wasp, and a Beau Brummell for 
polishing and pluming. What the other three 
chrysalids held was still a mystery. On June 
3d, a week after this Ichneumon appeared, 



A BUTTERFLY CHASE. 21 5 

the second chrysalis opened. I had been out 
to drive that afternoon, and as we came near 
a wild plum-tree we saw a very pretty butter- 
fly darting among its flowers, and then across 
the road like a flash, and back again. The 
carriage was stopped, and I eagerly watched 
the efforts of one more successful in butterfly 
capture by hand than any one I know to 
secure him, but in vain. Your hand was upon 
him just as he was on the other side of the 
road ! Securing some branches of the sweet 
blossoms, I was arranging them in a vase on 
my return, on the table where the three 
chrysalids were lying, when the second chrysa- 
lis opened, and out came the very butterfly 
we had failed to secure in our afternoon's 
chase ! The wild plum-blossoms were ready 
for him ! The next one gave also a fine 
butterfly ; and one never opened. And this 
was the way I learned the whole history of 
the beautiful Eudamus Tityrus* I have the 
two specimens and the Ichneumon now be- 
fore me, the only ones I have ever secured. 
The butterfly is so swift in motion, with such 

* The Eudamus Tityrus, one of the Hesperians, or Skippers, is the 
largest of the butterflies in that large group, which seems almost 
like a connecting link between moths and butterflies, their chrysa- 
lids being shaped like those of moths (conical in form), while the 
antennae are hooked at the end, as are those of the sphinges. 



2l6 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

a darting, zigzag dash that it is next to im- 
possible to catch him in flight. His wings are 
a rich velvety-brown, with a golden-edged, 
interrupted, honey-yellow band across the 
middle of the upper pair ; and lighter honey- 
yellow spots (almost in small squares) are 
found near their tip. The hinder wings have 
a very short, rounded tail, and a broad band 
of silver glistens on the middle part of their 
under side. The antennae are turned back at 
the end like a hook. The body is a rich 
purplish-brown, and the wings are finished 
with a shaded brown fringe. 



CATERPILLAR OF EUDAMUS 
TITYRUS. 




FIG. 94. 
CHRYSALIS OF EUDAMUS. 




FIG. 95. WHITE-LINED MORNING SPHINX. 



XXXIX. 



TWO SIDES TO A SHIELD. THE WHITE-LINED 
MORNING SPHINX. [DEILEPHILA LINEATA.] 

THE first caterpillar of the White-^ined 
Morning Sphinx, which I obtained on 
September 3, 1881, gave me my first lesson in 
the great variation there often is in larvae of 
the same moth. The one I had secured had 
three stripes down the back, made up of 
shaded, bead-like spots, strung on a line of 
pink, with a black line each side of the pink 
one. He was very dark, had a sharp horn on 
the end of his body, and spiracles black, edged 
with yellow. His photograph is given on p. 221. 



2l8 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

I had seen this caterpillar in Professor Riley's 
" Third Annual Missouri Report," as I thought, 
and turned to page 141 to compare my cater- 
pillar with the figure given there. To my 
surprise and disappointment, at a hasty 
glance I decided that they could not be the 
same. In too much haste to read the text, 
I was just about closing the pamphlet when 
my eye caught the words : " The most com- 
mon form of this larva is given at Fig. 61." 
The next thought, " perhaps he gives anothei' 
form," led me to turn the leaf, and lo ! there 
was my caterpillar, without a shadow of doubt, 
in Fig. 62. Then every word of his beautiful 
description was carefully read. He says : 
" Few persons are aware what this beautiful 
moth looks like or what it feeds upon, in the 
caterpillar state. . . . The very great di- 
versity of form and habits to be found 
amongst the larvae of our butterflies and 
moths has much to do with the interest which 
attaches to the study of these masked forms. 
I am moved to admiration and wonder as 
thoroughly to-day as in early boyhood every 
time I contemplate that within each of these 
varied and fantastic caterpillars ... is locked 
up the future butterfly or moth, which is 
destined, fairy-like, to ride the air on its 



THE WHITE-LINED MORNING SPHINX. 219 

gauzy wings, so totally unlike its former self. 
Verily the metamorphoses of the lower animals 
must prove a never-failing source of joy and 
felicity to those who have learned to open the 
pages of the great Book of Nature." Joy and 
felicity, the very words for me, and every new 
specimen served to emphasize them. He then 
adds : " The White-Lined Morning Sphinx 
presents one of the most striking cases of 
larval variation," asserting that from these 
very differently marked larvae the moths reared 
from them "show no differences whatever." 

To prove this, which was not doubted, was 
a pleasant task. My specimen went into the 
box of earth prepared for him on September 
7th, and on rolling back the earth from him 
September 13th I found him a fine chrysalis. 

On the 2 2d of September I secured another 
caterpillar of the same kind, and afterward 
three of the other kind, described in Fig. 61. 
As these made their several changes to the 
imago, I found the moths were all alike. On the 
24th of May the one I specially watched came 
out from his chrysalis. He was (very unlike 
the Polyphemus) less than a minute in coming 
out ! I should not have seen it, but happen- 
ing to look at the chrysalis at that moment, I 
heard a slight crackling noise and saw a tremor 



220 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

or shiver go over the upper part of the long 
yellowish-brown and pointed chrysalis (where 
was the head and thorax of the moth). Then 
the front piece lifted and gave way, and out 
stepped a thing of marvellous beauty, which 
had been shut up in darkness and silence in a 
homely casket since the previous September ! 
The front wings are a beautiful shade of olive- 
green, with a central line across of inter- 
rupted black and white, with a hint of rose or 
watermelon-heart color. Each side of this, 
separated by a band of olive about the six- 
teenth of an inch wide, is a larger, spotted, 
interrupted line of black and white spots in 
almost squares, the black a little larger and 
like velvet, and each side of this is a tint of 
rose. The beautiful rose-colored under wings 
unfolded slowly (as did the upper ones in 
getting their full expansion). The legs are 
spined and of a delicate mouse color, end- 
ing in a minute black claw. The spines on 
the first pair are very delicate and hair like, 
and are black. There are two spines of 
unequal length, almost at right angles, and 
mouse-color, like the legs, on each side of the 
other two pairs. 

The head is brown-olive in color, dashed 
with white in stripes running downwards, with 



THE WHITE-LINED MORNING SPHINX. 221 

a pinkish-white border finish. The side-pro- 
tectors of the coiled tongue are so prominent 
as to look like a front part of the head. The 
thorax is olive-green with white-dashed lines — 
one in the centre, then two below it, and a 
double V-shaped line on either side. 
The antennae are black, bordered 
on the entire outer edge with white. 
The side pieces to the tongue are 
also white-edged, running back and 
forming an unbroken line with the 
head markings. The eye is deep 
set, the pupil dark 
and perfectly round 
in the centre of^ 
the mouse -colored 
wheel-like eye. The 
tongue shows a little 
dark wheel between 
the side pieces. The 
body has a middle 
line, lengthwise of FIG - 9 6 - 

interrupted, short, black lines on a soft, mouse- 
colored ground, and either side of this central 
line is a row of round black dots, to the end 
which is very pointed and finished with a 
pencil of rich brown hairs. 

The antennae in shape look like small bean 




222 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

pods. They are crossed by regular lines. The 
centre a chocolate color, with a finely-toothed 
white edge. Both pairs of wings are elegantly 
fringed with white. He is swift in motion 
and when disturbed makes his wings twinkle, 
as when hovering over a flower. His generic 
name signifies " Evening Friend," and he is 
seen to the best advantage when flitting with 
perfect freedom, like a humming-bird, from 
flower to flower, sipping sweets with his long 
tongue and making the most of his new-found 
higher life. 





FIG. 98. 

XL. 

THE "DECEPTIVE" MOTH. 

MORE like a very modest, trustworthy 
Quaker looks the richly mottled sil- 
very-gray moth Apatela Americana which stole 
in upon me on Sabbath, April 20, 1890, 
from its plain gray parchment-like cocoon ; 




so stiff and hard an one, that in making his 
exit the whole of the rich brown chrysalis in- 
side it was thrown out into the box beside the 
clinging moth. Still, demure, quiet, why 
should it be named "Apatela — deceptive"? 



224 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

Because some entomologists are "strict to 
mark iniquity," and allow the moth to bear the 
blame of the first stage of its existence. For 
the Apatela Americano is an " Owlet " moth, 
one of the true " Noctuse" tribe, and yet its 
caterpillar is so like that of the Arctians as to 
deceive one versed in entomology, and to lead 
him to expect either a "great bear" or some 
other Arctian in the imago. I confess to 
having been " deceived " by the very cater- 
pillar which produced this moth, having bought 
him of a little boy on August 14, 1889, think- 
ing at the time, " I have had enough Arctians, 
but this one is so bright in color y that I will 
try one more." He was of a fine sulphur- 
yellow color, and was placed by some light 
straw-colored Arctians in a box to which little 
special attention was paid. True he had some 
long black pencils — two of them on the fourth 
ring, two on the sixth, and one on the next to 
the last. But some of the Arctians looked 
much like him. However, when he began 
"spinning up" on the 16th, two days later, I 
soon saw a difference in his cocoon and that 
of the Arctians. Those, instead of being rough 
and parchment-like and nondescript in shape, 
are smooth (hairy) and oval — looking as if 
evenly sheared to one exact length throughout 



THE "DECEPTIVE" MOTH. 225 

How long before he changed into a chrysalis 
inside his rough hammock I could not peer 
within to see ; but when, after lying perfectly 
still from August to April, he came out of his 
hiding place I looked beyond the chrysalis to 
the farther end of the cocoon inside to see if 
the sulphur-yellow color was visible in the 
caterpillar robe, which is always folded like a 
napkin, "in a place by itself," — and lo ! there 
it was — the jetty black head and yellow coat, 
making assurance doubly sure. He now stands 
quietly under the glass beside me, having satis- 
fied, himself with a full meal of sugared water, 
which I watched him take with his broad flat- 
tened, amber-colored tongue. His antennse 
are long and slender, have more of a twisted 
than ringed appearance, and are inserted in a 
little round socket, just above his large dark 
seal-brown eyes. His body is deeply ringed, 
and of the same soft brown hue as the wings. 
These are handsomely shaded, and their 
borders elegantly fringed, with white inter- 
mingled with lines of black. The first pair of 
legs are ringed with white and black lines and 
puffed at the top like an old fashioned " mutton- 
leg " sleeve. The second pair are also ringed 
but not puffed, and have one small spine. The 
last pair are plain — neither puffed nor spined. 



226 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

He is so gentle that the deception of his 
caterpillar state may be forgiven, and he is no 
doubt as welcome among his " Owlet " com- 
panions as though he started in life in a livery 
especially his own. 





XLI. 



THE ROYAL WALNUT MOTH. 



" ^\ ^ 7ITH patience wait for it," were the 
V V first words which came into my 
mind as, in the night of May 5, 1889, a slight 
tapping noise attracted my attention. On 
looking in the direction of the sound, I found 
the stranger, who first knocked and then en- 
tered into the world without waiting for a 
friendly "Come in," was no other than a 
beautiful Royal Walnut Moth (Ceratocampa 
regalis). "With patience," because, for' 
eleven years, I had waited in vain for the 
perfect imago of this rare and beautiful moth. 

The first caterpillar of this species was 
given me on August 30, 1878. After going 
through his moultings successfully, and form- 
ing at length a perfect chrysalis, he failed to 
appear, and remained in his casket without 
power to reveal what " might have been." 

Again and again other specimens were se- 



228 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

cured, and carefully watched through different 
changes, but all died before the perfect insects 
appeared. On September 6, 1888, a fine 
specimen was given me by a friend ; and this, 
after more than eight months' delay, is now 
the beautiful Ceratocampa before me. Look- 
ing back at a record made on September 8th 
of that year, I find this entry : " Watching 
my Royal Walnut. He eats silently and 
rapidly, the walnut-leaf melting away in front 
of him. He clasps the leaf with his first pair 
of russet-colored feet, and eats downward, so 
that his head bends toward the ground. The 
last two pairs of his long-spined horns lie back 
gracefully. The first short pair stand forward 
like ears. The second pair lie across the 
third, now, as he eats. He eats so as to leave 
a crescent in the leaf. The long narrow point 
of the leaf shakes like an aspen as he eats, un- 
til he cuts it off and drops it. There are three 
round black dots on each of the two last pairs 
of horns on the little yellow part which is next 
to the head. The three pairs of horns are 
tipped with black. There are two pairs of 
horns on the second and third segments. The 
long point of the walnut-leaf, which he could 
not eat (being unable to hold it, because it is 
so delicate), he took with his fore feet, and 



THE ROYAL WALNUT MOTH. 229 

lifted it gently out of the way, and then began 
in a new place." 

For the next day the entry is : " The 
Royal Walnut keeps very still. Has lain for 
a half hour in the same position — head bent 
down, so that the first pair of horns rest on 
the floor of his prison." Upon September 
10th, "I gave my Royal Walnut his last 
meal." At noon he was walking slowly on 
the earth with which a large box had been 
filled for him. After an after-dinner nap, I 
again went to his box. The untasted spray 
of walnut-leaves lay unwithered on the sur- 
face, but no trace of the caterpillar was to be 
seen. Not a movement of a grain of earth 
above him. He had buried himself. 

After a month had passed, curiosity over- 
came prudence, and the earth was shaken 
back to see if a perfect chrysalis was below. 
"There he lay in his imperfect, half-rounded 
bed — made by moistening the earth about 
him, — and as still as if dead." 

The chrysalids of many moths will be seen 
to show frequent signs of life ; but the stillest 
of all still things is the chrysalis of the Royal 
Walnut. You may watch it for days and 
weeks, or even watch its shadow, and you will 
see no slightest movement. The smooth, 



230 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

plump, black head, with its two slanting 
breathing-holes, is as still as a rock, and its 
rings (with the two queer flat little humps on 
the front one) are as still as the head. Again 
and again you say : " If there is any life in it, 
how can it keep so still ? " Then you satisfy 
yourself by stroking it very gently, with the 
faintest touch of your finger, along the side, 
and lo, a little cringe, showing the slightest 
shrinking from the touch. That is all. Again 
it is as still as a rock. After long watching, 
another stroke, and another almost imper- 
ceptible cringe. It bides its time. So must 
you. 

The eggs of the Royal Walnut closely re- 
semble the Malaga grape in shape and color. 
They are clear (unlike those of the Luna and 
Polyphemus moths) — so clear that the larvae 
can be seen through the delicate amber shells 
long before they are broken for exit. At first 
the caterpillar is nearly black. It changes in 
appearance, however, with each moulting, at 
one time being pale-green, again almost a. 
chocolate, and finally a deep dark-green, with 
pale bands of blue. The ten spined horns 
with which it is armed give it a menacing and 
formidable appearance, but it is at all times 
harmless. It is curious to note the different 



THE ROYAL WALNUT MOTH. 23 I 

expressions used by those who look at it. 
" Horrible creature ! " one exclaims. " It is 
almost beautiful — so richly shaded," says an- 
other. One writer says of this caterpillar : " It 
is handsomer than the beautiful moth it pro- 
duces." But, although it has rich colors, curi- 
ously shaded, I should say it took some nerve 
to see the beauty, as the form is certainly un- 
attractive. That from so formidable a creature 
such an exquisite moth should be produced 




YOUNG CATERPILLAR. 



seems little less than a miracle. In color the 
moth is entirely different from the caterpillar. 
Its fore wings are of a grayish-olive color, 
veined with lines of a peculiar shade of red — 
best described, I should say, as nacarat red. 
The hinder wings are red, with yellow spots 
of irregular form in front, and olive-colored 
spots behind, between the veins. The thorax 
is yellow, bordered with red. The antennae, 
or " feelers," are amber-colored, and in the 
female specimen which I have, appear to be 
ringed, when viewed by a microscope. 



232 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

The moth is gentle and quiet. It takes no 
notice of offered sweets, and shows no sign of 
possessing a tongue. For a short time it gives 
its silent beauty to please, makes provision for 
other silently beautiful moths (one hundred 
and twelve eggs were laid by this one), and 
dies. 

The most touching thing in the life of the 
Royal Walnut is its self-burial. This was 
carefully watched and timed in one specimen 
(which, however, failed to develop an 




FULL-GROWN CATERPILLAR. 



I will close this sketch by a quotation from 
a record, kept at the time, of two Royal Wal- 
nut caterpillars, one of which thus buried itself : 
" On the 30th of August, 1882, I was fortunate 
enough to find two specimens of this caterpil- 
lar on a large walnut-tree. They were of a 
mulberry-brown color (probably being in their 
second stage), with heads of glassy brilliancy ; 
brown feet, striped with black ; and light, di- 
agonal side stripes separating the spiracles or 



THE ROYAL WALNUT MOTH. 233 

breathing pores. Both were watched through 
their last moultings, and one of them changed 
into a chrysalis on the surface of the earth in 
his box. He had taken no food for a week 
previous, and the opportunity of watching him 
make the chrysalis was unique and full of in- 
terest. He lay upon his back with feet upper- 
most, and the head of the chrysalis appeared 
earliest. It was large, and of a delicate pea- 
green at first. The small, old brown head of 
the caterpillar is now gliding down very slowly 
on the top of the newly-formed chrysalis, as it 
lies on the spined horns below, and looks so 




CHRYSALIS OF ROYAL WALNUT MOTH. 



meek and helpless as it is pushed down by the 
retreating skin. The sides of the chrysalis, as 
they appear, are tinted with pale red. The 
spiracles are oval and brown-bordered ; the 
antennas stand out clear amber. Looking with 
my microscope, I can see the immature parts 
of the moth's head arranging themselves ; the 
part where the head is, and inner part of the 



234 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

vest, not yet being closed. If this space closes 
over (as it seems to be closed in a perfect 
chrysalis), it will be very strange to see how- 
it is done. The other Royal caterpillar is 
eating his leaves contentedly on the walnut 
branches above him (he is on a spray growing 
from a bottle of water in his prison), in bliss- 
ful ignorance of his own coming change." 

This chrysalis was not as perfect as those 
formed underground. That of the second, 
which buried itself, is the one shown in the 
picture. The record of its change is under date 
of September 13th : 

" I watched my Royal Walnut bury himself. 
About half-past eleven a.m., I saw he had done 
eating, and was very restless, so I put him on 
a box of earth. It was a touching sight to 
see him take charge of his own funeral. 
Slowly he walked around, surveying the 
ground ; and then, at one corner, chose his 
lot, and began going down, very slowly, head 
first, and a little way at a time. He would 
raise up the back part of his body, nearly 
vertically, every little while. This earth was 
fine and mellow, and I thought how difficult it 
must be for him to go down into the hard 
ground under the walnut-tree. Nature is won- 
derful in her workings : Why do the Polyphe- 



236 AMONG THE MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 

mus, Luna, Cecropia, and Prometheus make 
cocoons, while the moths of the Grape, To- 
mato, and Walnut bury themselves in the 
ground ? Why does one never change its 
own way, and try another's plan — some pre- 
ferring a tomb, and others a burial ? Ten 
minutes past twelve, — forty minutes in all, — 
and the last speck of green and brown had 
disappeared. By close watching, with a mag- 
nifying glass, I learned a new and wonderful 
thing. I saw plainly the reason he did not go 
down faster. He was making a smooth, soft 
tunnel for himself ! He threw from his mouth 
quantities of water or mucilage, and thus soft- 
ened and worked the earth, until the whole 
tunnel was really plastered, and then, by a 
succession of strong upheavals, he threw the 
dry earth over the back part of himself (rather 
than draw that in), until he was hidden from 
sight. The earth above him trembled and 
moved for several hours after, as if he was 
still at work in his burial-place below." 

The oval earth-casket which this caterpillar 
made was much more complete than the one 
which held the chrysalis of my Royal Walnut 
Moth. It was probably partly from the gentle 
breaking of this to get the chrysalis, and from 
the jarring in taking its likeness given in the 



THE ROYAL WALNUT MOTH. 



237 



picture, which prevented the appearance of 
the perfect insect. One who witnesses the 
wonderful transformation from the creeping, 
ungainly worm to the exquisitely dainty moth, 
winged and fitted for a higher life, is reminded 
of the words of Scripture : " It doth not yet 
appear what we shall be." 




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